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 abundant with 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 shall give wealth, and substance, and honor, and he wants nothing for his soul of all things that he shall desire, yet God shall not give him power to eat of it, for a stranger shall devour it: this is vanity, and an evil infirmity.
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 beget a hundred [children], and live many years, yes, however abundant the days of his years shall be, yet [if] his soul shall not be satisfied with good, and also he have no burial; I said, 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 he came in vanity, and departs in darkness, and his name shall be covered in darkness.
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 he has not seen the sun, nor known rest: there is [no more rest] to this one than another.
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].
Though he has lived to the return of a thousand years, yet he has seen no good: do not all 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 labor of a man is for his mouth, and yet the appetite shall not be satisfied.
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 has the wise man over the fool, since [even] the poor knows how to walk in the direction of life?
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.
The sight of the eyes is better than that which wanders in soul: this is also vanity, and waywardness 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.
If anything has been, its name has already been called: and it is known what man is; neither can he 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 which increase vanity.
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].
What advantage has a man? for who knows [what is] good for a man in his life, [during] the number of the life of the days of his vanity? and he has spent them as a shadow; for who shall tell a man what shall be after him under the sun?
