1. THEN I returned and considered all the oppressions that are practiced under the sun: And I beheld the tears of the oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors was power, but they [too] had no comforter.
2. So I praised and thought more fortunate those who have been long dead than the living, who are still alive.
3. But better than them both [I thought] is he who has not yet been born, who has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun.
4. Then I saw that all painful effort in labor and all skill in work comes from man's rivalry with his neighbor. This is also vanity, a vain striving after the wind and a feeding on it.
5. The fool folds his hands together and eats his own flesh [destroying himself by indolence].
6. Better is a handful with quietness than both hands full with painful effort, a vain striving after the wind and a feeding on it.
7. Then I returned, and I saw vanity under the sun [in one of its peculiar forms].
8. Here is one alone–no one with him; he neither has child nor brother. Yet there is no end to all his labor, neither is his eye satisfied with riches, neither does he ask, For whom do I labor and deprive myself of good? This is also vanity (emptiness, falsity, and futility); yes, it is a painful effort and an unhappy business. [Prov. 27:20; I John 2:16.]
9. Two are better than one, because they have a good [more satisfying] reward for their labor;
10. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!