Ecclesiastes 2:19
Good News Translation
and he might be wise, or he might be foolish--who knows? Yet he will own everything I have worked for, everything my wisdom has earned for me in this world. It is all useless.

New Revised Standard Version
—and who knows whether they will be wise or foolish? Yet they will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity.

Contemporary English Version
Who knows if those people will be sensible or stupid? Either way, they will own everything I have earned by hard work and wisdom. It doesn't make sense.

New American Bible
And who knows whether that one will be wise or a fool? Yet that one will take control of all the fruits of my toil and wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity.

Douay-Rheims Bible
Whom I know not whether he will be a wise man or a fool, and he shall have rule over all my labours with which I have laboured and been solicitous: and is there anything so vain?

Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Whom I know not whether he will be a wise man or a fool, and he shall have rule over all my labours with which I have laboured and been solicitous: and is there anything so vain?

who knoweth

Ecclesiastes 3:22 And I have found that nothing is better than for a man to rejoice in his work, and that this is his portion. For who shall bring him to know the things that shall be after him?

1 Kings 12:14 And he spoke to them according to the counsel of the young men, saying: My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke: My father beat you with whips, but I will beat you with scorpions.

1 Kings 14:25-28 And in the fifth year of the reign of Roboam, Sesac, king of Egypt, came up against Jerusalem. . . .

2 Chronicles 10:13-16 And the king answered roughly, leaving the counsel of the ancients. . . .

2 Chronicles 12:9,10 So Sesac king of Egypt departed from Jerusalem, taking away the treasures of the king's house, and he took all with him, and the golden shields that Solomon had made, . . .

wise under

Ecclesiastes 9:13 This wisdom also I have seen under the sun, and it seemed to me to be very great:

Luke 16:8 And the lord commended the unjust steward, forasmuch as he had done wisely: for the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light.

James 1:17 Every best gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no change nor shadow of alteration.

James 3:17 But the wisdom that is from above, first indeed is chaste, then peaceable, modest, easy to be persuaded, consenting to the good, full of mercy and good fruits, without judging, without dissimulation.

Context
The Futility of Work
18Again I hated all my application wherewith I had earnestly laboured under the sun, being like to have an heir after me, 19Whom I know not whether he will be a wise man or a fool, and he shall have rule over all my labours with which I have laboured and been solicitous: and is there anything so vain?20Wherefore I left off and my heart renounced labouring anymore under the sun.…
Cross References
1 Timothy 6:10
For the desire of money is the root of all evils; which some coveting have erred from the faith and have entangled themselves in many sorrows.

1 Kings 12:13
And the king answered the people roughly, leaving the counsel of the old men, which they had given him,

Ecclesiastes 2:20
Wherefore I left off and my heart renounced labouring anymore under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 2:18
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