Limitless Word

Ecclesiastes 1

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📖 Ecclesiastes introduction

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1These are the words of the Teacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem: ✦ 2“Futility of futilities,” says the Teacher, “futility of futilities! Everything is futile!” ✦ 3What does a man gain from all his labor, at which he toils under the sun? ✦ 4Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever. ✦ 5The sun rises and the sun sets; it hurries back to where it rises. ✦ 6The wind blows southward, then turns northward; round and round it swirls, ever returning on its course. ✦ 7All the rivers flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full; to the place from which the streams come, there again they flow. ✦ 8All things are wearisome, more than one can describe; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear content with hearing. ✦ 9What has been will be again, and what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. ✦ 10Is there a case where one can say, “Look, this is new”? It has already existed in the ages before us. ✦ 11There is no remembrance of those who came before, and those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow after. ✦ 12I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. ✦ 13And I set my mind to seek and explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven. What a heavy burden God has laid upon the sons of men to occupy them! ✦ 14I have seen all the things that are done under the sun, and have found them all to be futile, a pursuit of the wind. ✦ 15What is crooked cannot be straightened, and what is lacking cannot be counted. ✦ 16I said to myself, “Behold, I have grown and increased in wisdom beyond all those before me who were over Jerusalem, and my mind has observed a wealth of wisdom and knowledge.” ✦ 17So I set my mind to know wisdom and madness and folly; I learned that this, too, is a pursuit of the wind. ✦ 18For with much wisdom comes much sorrow, and as knowledge grows, grief increases. ✦

Tap any verse for its study page. Underlined terms mark a concept, person, or place; ✦ marks verses with cross-references.

Where this chapter connects

Eccl 2 ·24Eccl 4 ·9Eccl 7 ·8Eccl 3 ·5Eccl 1 ·5Eccl 6 ·5Eccl 12 ·4Eccl 5 ·4

Christ at the center

The search that finds everything 'under the sun' to be vapor exposes the emptiness of life without God and drives us to the one who alone gives meaning, the resurrection that makes our labor not in vain.

How Ecclesiastes 1 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.

Resources, by level

Lay

  • ★ Start hereAudioThrough the WordThrough the Word · ~10 min/chapter · Free · evangelical

    A clear ~10-minute audio teaching for every one of the Bible's 1,189 chapters — the most systematic free way to study chapter by chapter.

Pastoral

  • SermonChuck Smith — C2000 SeriesChuck Smith · Free · evangelical

    Free verse-by-verse audio through the entire Bible from the founder of Calvary Chapel.

Commentaries & study tools

Ecclesiastes 2 →