< Ecclesiastes 6 >
1 I have seen something [else here] on this earth that troubles people.
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.
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.
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.
5 It does not [live to] see the sun or know anything. But it finds more rest than rich people do [who are alive].
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].
7 People work hard to [earn enough money to buy] food to eat [MTY], but [often] they never get enough to eat.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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].
