Ecclesiastes 6
1 I have seen something [else here] on this earth that troubles people.
There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, and it [is] great on man:
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.
A man to whom God giveth wealth, and riches, and honour, and there is no lack to his soul of all that he desireth, and God giveth him not power to eat of it, but a stranger eateth 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 doth beget a hundred, and live many years, and is great, because they are the days of his years, and his soul is not satisfied from the goodness, and also he hath not had a grave, I have said, 'Better than he [is] the untimely birth.'
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 he came in, and in darkness he goeth, and in darkness his name is 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].
Even the sun he hath not seen nor known, more rest hath this than that.
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].
And though he had lived a thousand years twice over, yet good he hath not seen; to the same place doth not every one go?
7 People work hard to [earn enough money to buy] food to eat [MTY], but [often] they never get enough to eat.
All the labour of man [is] for his mouth, and yet the soul is not 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 advantage [is] to the wise above the fool? What to the poor who knoweth to walk 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] the sight of the eyes than the going of the soul. This also [is] vanity and vexation of 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.
What [is] that which hath been? already is its name called, and it is known that it [is] man, and he is not able to contend with him who is stronger 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 multiplying vanity; what advantage [is] to 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 a man in life, the number of the days of the life of his vanity, and he maketh them as a shadow? for who declareth to man what is after him under the sun?
