Bible Reading Plan

Read the Bible in two years

Wednesday, December 31, 2025

Ecclesiastes 1:1–11 (Listen)

All Is Vanity

1:1 The words of the Preacher,1 the son of David, king in Jerusalem.

2   Vanity2 of vanities, says the Preacher,
    vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
3   What does man gain by all the toil
    at which he toils under the sun?
4   A generation goes, and a generation comes,
    but the earth remains forever.
5   The sun rises, and the sun goes down,
    and hastens3 to the place where it rises.
6   The wind blows to the south
    and goes around to the north;
  around and around goes the wind,
    and on its circuits the wind returns.
7   All streams run to the sea,
    but the sea is not full;
  to the place where the streams flow,
    there they flow again.
8   All things are full of weariness;
    a man cannot utter it;
  the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
    nor the ear filled with hearing.
9   What has been is what will be,
    and what has been done is what will be done,
    and there is nothing new under the sun.
10   Is there a thing of which it is said,
    “See, this is new”?
  It has been already
    in the ages before us.
11   There is no remembrance of former things,4
    nor will there be any remembrance
  of later things5 yet to be
    among those who come after.

Footnotes

[1] 1:1 Or Convener, or Collector; Hebrew Qoheleth (so throughout Ecclesiastes)
[2] 1:2 The Hebrew term hebel, translated vanity or vain, refers concretely to a “mist,” “vapor,” or “mere breath,” and metaphorically to something that is fleeting or elusive (with different nuances depending on the context). It appears five times in this verse and in 29 other verses in Ecclesiastes
[3] 1:5 Or and returns panting
[4] 1:11 Or former people
[5] 1:11 Or later people

Psalm 129 (Listen)

They Have Afflicted Me from My Youth

A Song of Ascents.

129:1   “Greatly1 have they afflicted me from my youth”—
    let Israel now say—
2   “Greatly have they afflicted me from my youth,
    yet they have not prevailed against me.
3   The plowers plowed upon my back;
    they made long their furrows.”
4   The LORD is righteous;
    he has cut the cords of the wicked.
5   May all who hate Zion
    be put to shame and turned backward!
6   Let them be like the grass on the housetops,
    which withers before it grows up,
7   with which the reaper does not fill his hand
    nor the binder of sheaves his arms,
8   nor do those who pass by say,
    “The blessing of the LORD be upon you!
    We bless you in the name of the LORD!”

Footnotes

[1] 129:1 Or Often; also verse 2

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. You may not copy or download more than 500 consecutive verses of the ESV Bible or more than one half of any book of the ESV Bible.

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