¹⁶ When I gave my heart to know wisdom and to see the business that hath been done on the earth, (for there is also a spectator in whose eyes sleep is not by day and by night),

² Vain for you who are rising early, Who delay sitting, eating the bread of griefs, So He giveth to His beloved one sleep.

¹³ And I have given my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom concerning all that hath been done under the heavens. It `is' a sad travail God hath given to the sons of man to be humbled by it.

²³ For all his days are sorrows, and his travail sadness; even at night his heart hath not lain down; this also `is' vanity.

⁴⁰ I have been `thus': in the day consumed me hath drought, and frost by night, and wander doth my sleep from mine eyes.

⁸ There is one, and there is not a second; even son or brother he hath not, and there is no end to all his labour! His eye also is not satisfied with riches, and `he saith not', `For whom am I labouring and bereaving my soul of good?' This also is vanity, it is a sad travail.

¹² Sweet `is' the sleep of the labourer whether he eat little or much; and the sufficiency of the wealthy is not suffering him to sleep.

²⁵ I have turned round, also my heart, to know and to search, and to seek out wisdom, and reason, and to know the wrong of folly, and of foolishness the madness.

⁷ For he knoweth not that which shall be, for when it shall be who declareth to him?

⁹ All this I have seen so as to give my heart to every work that hath been done under the sun; a time that man hath ruled over man to his own evil.