For no one ¹  can eat and drink ²  or experience joy ³  apart from him. ⁴ 

Who is ¹  a ²  wise person? Who knows the solution ³  to a problem? ⁴  A person’s wisdom brightens his appearance, ⁵  and softens ⁶  his harsh countenance. ⁷ 

Whatever has happened is beyond human ¹  understanding; ²  it is far deeper than anyone can fathom. ³ 

Consider the work of God: For who can make straight what he has bent?

Surely the king’s authority ¹  is absolute; ²  no one can say ³  to him, “What are you doing?”

Surely no one knows the future, ¹  and no one can tell another person what will happen. ² 

For no one knows what is best for a person during his life ¹  – during the few days of his fleeting life – for ²  they pass away ³  like a shadow. Nor can anyone tell him what the future will hold for him on earth. ⁴ 

Who knows if he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet ¹  he will be master over all the fruit of ²  my labor ³  for which I worked so wisely ⁴  on earth! ⁵  This also is futile!

Who really knows if the human spirit ¹  ascends upward, and the animal’s spirit descends into the earth?

So I perceived there is nothing better than for people ¹  to enjoy their work, ²  because that is their ³  reward; for who can show them what the future holds? ⁴ 

The one who loves money ¹  will never be satisfied with money, ²  he who loves wealth ³  will never be satisfied ⁴  with his ⁵  income. This also is futile.

But whoever is among ¹  the living ²  has hope; a live dog is better than a dead lion.

yet a fool keeps on babbling. ¹  No one knows what will happen; who can tell him what will happen in the future? ² 

A man who is all alone with no companion, ¹  he has no children nor siblings; ²  yet there is no end to all his toil, and he ³  is never satisfied with riches. He laments, ⁴  “For whom am I toiling and depriving myself ⁵  of pleasure?” ⁶  This also is futile and a burdensome task! ⁷