12. And I turned to see wisdom, and madness, and folly, but what [is] the man who cometh after the king? that which [is] already--they have done it!
13. And I saw that there is an advantage to wisdom above folly, like the advantage of the light above the darkness.
14. The wise! --his eyes [are] in his head, and the fool in darkness is walking, and I also knew that one event happeneth with them all;
15. and I said in my heart, `As it happeneth with the fool, it happeneth also with me, and why am I then more wise?' And I spake in my heart, that also this [is] vanity:
16. That there is no remembrance to the wise--with the fool--to the age, for that which [is] already, [in] the days that are coming is all forgotten, and how dieth the wise? with the fool!
17. And I have hated life, for sad to me [is] the work that hath been done under the sun, for the whole [is] vanity and vexation of spirit.
18. And I have hated all my labour that I labour at under the sun, because I leave it to a man who is after me.
19. And who knoweth whether he is wise or foolish? yet he doth rule over all my labour that I have laboured at, and that I have done wisely under the sun! this also [is] vanity.
20. And I turned round to cause my heart to despair concerning all the labour that I laboured at under the sun.
21. For there is a man whose labour [is] in wisdom, and in knowledge, and in equity, and to a man who hath not laboured therein he giveth it--his portion! Even this [is] vanity and a great evil.
22. For what hath been to a man by all his labour, and by the thought of his heart that he laboured at under the sun?
23. For all his days are sorrows, and his travail sadness; even at night his heart hath not lain down; this also [is] vanity.
24. There is nothing good in a man who eateth, and hath drunk, and hath shewn his soul good in his labour. This also I have seen that it [is] from the hand of God.