Ecclesiastes 6
1 I have seen something [else here] on this earth that troubles people.
There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, and it is great on men:
2 God enables some people to get a lot of money and possessions and to be honored; they have everything [LIT] that they want. But God [sometimes] does not allow them to continue to enjoy those things. Someone else gets them and enjoys them. That seems senseless and unfair.
[There is many] a man to whom God hath given riches, property, and honor, and nothing is wanting for his soul of all that he longeth for: yet God empowereth him not to eat thereof, but a stranger will consume it. This is vanity, and it is an evil disease.
3 Someone might have 100 children and live for many years. But if he is not able to enjoy the things that he has acquired, and if he is not buried [properly after he dies], [I say that] a child that is dead when it is born is more fortunate.
If a man were to beget a hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years were many, and his soul were not satisfied with what is good, and he have not had even a burial: then do I say, that an untimely birth is better than he.
4 That dead baby’s birth is meaningless; it does not even have a name. It goes directly to the place where there is only darkness.
For in vanity it came, and in darkness it departeth, and with darkness will its name be covered.
5 It does not [live to] see the sun or know anything. But it finds more rest than rich people do [who are alive].
Moreover it never saw the sun, and knew nothing: this hath more rest than the other.
6 Even if people could live for 2,000 years, if they do not enjoy the things that God gives to them, [it would have been better for them never to have been born]. [All people who live a long time] certainly [RHQ] all go to the same place— [to the grave].
Yea, though he were to live a thousand years twice told, and had not seen any good— doth not every one go to one place?
7 People work hard to [earn enough money to buy] food to eat [MTY], but [often] they never get enough to eat.
All the toil of a man is for his mouth; and yet is his desire never filled.
8 So it seems that [RHQ] wise people do not receive more lasting benefits than foolish people do. And it seems that [RHQ] poor people do not benefit from knowing how to conduct their lives.
For what hath the wise more than the fool? what hath the poor, that knoweth to walk [properly] before the living?
9 It is better to enjoy the things that we already have [MTY] than to constantly want more things; continually wanting more things is [senseless], [like] the wind.
Better is what one seeth with the eyes than the wandering of the desire. Also this is vanity and a torture of the spirit.
10 All the things that exist [on the earth] have been given names. And everyone knows what people are like, [so] it is useless to argue with someone (OR, with God) who is stronger than we are.
That which hath been is already called by its name, and it is known that he is a man: and he is not able to contend with him that is mightier than he.
11 The more [that we] talk, the more [often we say things that are] senseless, so it certainly does not [RHQ] benefit us to talk a lot.
For there are many things that increase vanity: what advantage [cometh thence] for man?
12 We live for only a short time; we disappear like [SIM] a shadow disappears [in the sunlight]. No one [RHQ] knows what is best for us while we are alive, and no one [RHQ] knows what will happen to us after we die [EUP].
For who knoweth what is good for man in this life, the number of the days of his vain life, that he should spend them as a shadow? for who can tell a man what will be after him under the sun?
