Ecclesiastes 8:16 - New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition 2021

When I applied my mind to know wisdom and to see the business that is done on earth, how one’s eyes see sleep neither day nor night,

More versions

King James Version (Oxford) 1769

When I applied mine heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done upon the earth: (for also there is that neither day nor night seeth sleep with his eyes:)

Amplified Bible - Classic Edition

When I applied my mind to know wisdom and to see the business activity and the painful effort that take place upon the earth–how neither day nor night some men's eyes sleep–

American Standard Version (1901)

When I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done upon the earth (for also there is that neither day nor night seeth sleep with his eyes),

Common English Bible

Then I set my mind to know wisdom and to observe the business that happens on earth, even going without sleep day and night

Catholic Public Domain Version

And I applied my heart, so that I might know wisdom, and so that I might understand a disturbance that turns upon the earth: it is a man, who takes no sleep with his eyes, day and night.

Douay-Rheims version of The Bible - 1752 version

And I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to understand the distraction that is upon earth: for there are some that day and night take no sleep with their eyes.

Ecclesiastes 8:16 Cross References

Genesis 31:40

It was like this with me: by day the heat consumed me and the cold by night, and my sleep fled from my eyes.

Psalm 127:2

It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil, for he gives sleep to his beloved.

Ecclesiastes 1:13

I applied my mind to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven; it is an unhappy business that God has given to humans to be busy with.

Ecclesiastes 1:14

I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun, and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind.

Ecclesiastes 1:17

And I applied my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a chasing after wind.

Ecclesiastes 2:23

For all their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation; even at night their minds do not rest. This also is vanity.

Ecclesiastes 4:8

the case of solitary individuals, without sons or brothers; yet there is no end to all their toil, and their eyes are never satisfied with riches. “For whom am I toiling,” they ask, “and depriving myself of pleasure?” This also is vanity and an unhappy business.

Ecclesiastes 5:12

Sweet is the sleep of laborers, whether they eat little or much, but the abundance of the rich will not let them sleep.

Ecclesiastes 7:25

I turned my mind to know and to search out and to seek wisdom and the sum of things and to know that wickedness is folly and that foolishness is madness.

Ecclesiastes 8:7

Indeed, they do not know what is to be, for who can tell them how it will be?

Ecclesiastes 8:9

All this I observed, applying my mind to all that is done under the sun, while one person exercises authority over another to the other’s hurt.