Study Desk

The Ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meate in the summer.

The conies are but a feeble folke, yet make they their houses in the rocks

The locustes haue no king, yet goe they forth all of them by bands.

Shee riseth also while it is yet night, and giueth meate to her household, and a portion to her maydens.

All the riuers runne into the sea, yet the Sea is not full: vnto the place from whence the riuers come, thither they returne againe.

I sought in mine heart to giue my selfe vnto wine, (yet acquainting mine heart with wisedome) and to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was that good for the sonnes of men, which they should doe vnder the heauen all the dayes of their life.

And who knoweth whether he shall be a wise man or a foole? yet shall he haue rule ouer all my labour, wherein I haue laboured, and wherein I haue shewed my selfe wise vnder the Sunne. This is also vanitie.

For there is a man whose labour is in wisedome and in knowledge, and in equitie: yet to a man that hath not laboured therein, shall hee leaue it for his portion; This also is vanitie, and a great euill.

Wherefore I praised the dead which are already dead, more then the liuing which are yet aliue.

Yea better is he then both they, which hath not yet been, who hath not seene the euill worke that is done vnder the Sunne.

There is one alone, and there is not a second; yea, he hath neither childe nor brother: yet is there no end of all his labour, neither is his eye satisfied with riches, neither sayth hee, For whom doe I labour, and bereaue my soule of good? this is also vanitie, yea it is a sore trauell.

A man to whom God hath giuen riches, wealth and honour, so that he wanteth nothing for his soule of all that he desireth, yet God giueth him not power to eate thereof, but a stranger eateth it: This is vanitie, and it is an euill disease.

Yea though he liue a thousand yeeres twice told, yet hath he seene no good: Doe not all goe to one place?

All the labour of man is for his mouth, and yet the appetite is not filled.

Which yet my soule seeketh, but I finde not: one man among a thousand haue I found, but a woman among all those haue I not found.

Though a sinner doe euill an hundred times, and his dayes be prolonged; yet surely I know that it shall be well with them that feare God, which feare before him.

Then I behelde all the worke of God, that a man cannot finde out the worke that is done vnder the Sunne: because though a man labour to seeke it out, yea further though a wise man thinke to know it, yet shall hee not be able to finde it.

I returned, and saw vnder the Sunne, That the race is not to the swift, nor the battell to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of vnderstanding, nor yet fauour to men of skil; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Now there was found in it a poore wise man, and hee by his wisedome deliuered the citie; yet no man remembred that same poore man.

But if a man liue many yeeres, and reioyce in them all; yet let him remember the dayes of darkenesse, for they shall be many. All that commeth is vanitie.