--- title: "Book of Ecclesiastes: Summary & All 12 Chapters · Bless" url: https://blessbible.app/bible/ecclesiastes/ description: "The Book of Ecclesiastes, a wisdom meditation in 12 chapters. Bp. Challoner’s summary of all 12 chapters, and the full text free." --- Old Testament # The Book of Ecclesiastes The Book of Ecclesiastes is the twenty-third of the 46 books of the Old Testament: 12 chapters and 222 verses. [Start reading: Ecclesiastes 1](https://blessbible.app/bible/ecclesiastes/1/) Chapters 1–12: [1](https://blessbible.app/bible/ecclesiastes/1/) … [12](https://blessbible.app/bible/ecclesiastes/12/) ## About Ecclesiastes About Ecclesiastes · Wisdom meditation Ecclesiastes is the Bible's starkest book: a teacher who calls himself Qoheleth, writing in Solomon's persona, examines wealth, pleasure, work, and learning, and finds them all vanity — breath, mist, gone. His name and date are unknown; his voice is unlike anything else in Scripture. He wrote to strip his students of illusions, so that they would stop demanding permanence from things that cannot give it and receive their days, their bread, and their work as gifts from God. The Church kept this unsettling book because honest disillusion is a doorway to real faith. *Ecclesiastes in Bless* | | | |---|---| | Testament | Old Testament — book 23 of 46, 23 of 73 in the Bible | | Canon | Protocanonical (in every Christian canon) | | Chapters | 12 | | Verses | 222, as Bless numbers them | | Latin | Clementine Vulgate, every chapter | | Bp. Challoner | Summaries of all 12 chapters · 12 notes | | Catechism | 2 paragraphs cite it | Chapter by chapter ## All 12 chapters, *in brief.* Bishop Richard Challoner’s summary of each chapter, from his revision of the Douay-Rheims (1749–52). Open a chapter for the full text. 1. ### [Ecclesiastes 1](https://blessbible.app/bible/ecclesiastes/1/) 18 verses The vanity of all temporal things. 2. ### [Ecclesiastes 2](https://blessbible.app/bible/ecclesiastes/2/) 26 verses The vanity of pleasures, riches, and worldly labours. 3. ### [Ecclesiastes 3](https://blessbible.app/bible/ecclesiastes/3/) 22 verses All human things are liable to perpetual changes. We are to rest on God's providence, and cast away fruitless cares. 4. ### [Ecclesiastes 4](https://blessbible.app/bible/ecclesiastes/4/) 17 verses Other instances of human miseries. 5. ### [Ecclesiastes 5](https://blessbible.app/bible/ecclesiastes/5/) 19 verses Caution in words. Vows are to be paid. Riches are often pernicious: the moderate use of them is the gift of God. 6. ### [Ecclesiastes 6](https://blessbible.app/bible/ecclesiastes/6/) 11 verses The misery of the covetous man. 7. ### [Ecclesiastes 7](https://blessbible.app/bible/ecclesiastes/7/) 30 verses Prescriptions against worldly vanities: mortification, patience, and seeking wisdom. 8. ### [Ecclesiastes 8](https://blessbible.app/bible/ecclesiastes/8/) 17 verses True wisdom is to observe God's commandments. The ways of God are unsearchable. 9. ### [Ecclesiastes 9](https://blessbible.app/bible/ecclesiastes/9/) 18 verses Man knows not certainty that he is in God's grace. After death no more work or merit. 10. ### [Ecclesiastes 10](https://blessbible.app/bible/ecclesiastes/10/) 20 verses Observations on wisdom and folly, ambition and detraction. 11. ### [Ecclesiastes 11](https://blessbible.app/bible/ecclesiastes/11/) 10 verses Exhortation to works of mercy, while we have time, to diligence in good, and to the remembrance of death and judgment. 12. ### [Ecclesiastes 12](https://blessbible.app/bible/ecclesiastes/12/) 14 verses The Creator is to be remembered in the days of our youth: all worldly things are vain: we should fear God and keep his commandments. Bp. Richard Challoner · chapter summaries In the comments ## What the saints *said.* 3 quotations from 3 saints linked to passages of Ecclesiastes in Bless. Each names the work it comes from. [St. Cyprian](https://blessbible.app/saints/st-cyprian/) · on [Ecclesiastes 5:2](https://blessbible.app/bible/ecclesiastes/5/#v2) On this theme > Let our speech and petition when we pray be under discipline, observing quietness and modesty. Let us consider that we are standing in God's sight. On the Lord's Prayer, 4, c. 252 [St. John Bosco](https://blessbible.app/saints/st-john-bosco/) · on [Ecclesiastes 11:9](https://blessbible.app/bible/ecclesiastes/11/#v9) On this theme > Enjoy yourself as much as you like, if only you keep from sin. The Companion of Youth, 1847 [St. Ignatius of Loyola](https://blessbible.app/saints/st-ignatius-of-loyola/) · on [Ecclesiastes 12:13](https://blessbible.app/bible/ecclesiastes/12/#v13) On this theme > Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul. Spiritual Exercises, 23, 1548 Coming up ## Read at *Mass.* From October 29, 2026 to October 28, 2027, Ecclesiastes is read at the principal Mass on 0 days in the US calendar. The next 2 readings: | Date | Celebration | Reading | Citation | |---|---|---|---| | [Thu, Sep 28, 2028](https://blessbible.app/calendar/2028/09/28/) computed | Thursday of the Twenty-fifth Week in Ordinary Time | First Reading | [Ecclesiastes 1:2-11](https://blessbible.app/bible/ecclesiastes/1/) | | [Sat, Sep 30, 2028](https://blessbible.app/calendar/2028/09/30/) computed | St. Jerome, Priest and Doctor of the Church | First Reading | [Ecclesiastes 11:9—12:8](https://blessbible.app/bible/ecclesiastes/11/) | Dates after May 31, 2027 are computed by Bless from the US Lectionary cycle — confirm with your parish. [Previous book The Book of Proverbs](https://blessbible.app/bible/proverbs/) [Next book The Song of Songs](https://blessbible.app/bible/song-of-songs/)