The Pleasure Experiment That Failed — Ecclesiastes

The Preacher tells his heart that he will test it with pleasure, and sees at once that this too is vanity. He tries laughter and calls it mad. He tries wine, while keeping wisdom with him. Then he builds: houses, vineyards, gardens and orchards, and pools of water for the trees. He buys servants and maidens, gathers flocks, silver and gold, and surrounds himself with singers and instruments. He becomes greater than anyone before him in Jerusalem. Whatever his eyes desire, he does not keep from them, and his heart rejoices in all his labour. That, he says, was his portion.

Then he looks back at all his hands have made, and finds vanity and vexation of spirit, and no profit under the sun. He turns to compare wisdom with folly. Wisdom does better, as light does better than darkness: the wise man has his eyes in his head, and the fool walks in the dark. Yet one event comes to them both. What happens to the fool will happen to him, and he asks why he was ever wiser. The wise are no more remembered than the fool, because in the days to come everything is forgotten. How does the wise man die? As the fool dies.

So he hates life, and he hates his labour, because he must leave it to whoever comes after him. Who knows whether that person will be wise or a fool? Yet he will rule over all the king has worked for. His days are sorrow and his grief is travail, and even at night his heart takes no rest. He says there is nothing better for a person than to eat, drink, and let the soul enjoy good in its labour, and he sees that this comes from the hand of God.

The last verse says God gives wisdom, knowledge and joy to the one who is good in his sight, and gives the sinner the work of gathering and heaping up, to hand over to that other person. Then the Preacher adds, once more, that this also is vanity and vexation of spirit.