Ecclesiastes 1
1 [I am Solomon], the son of [King] David. [I rule] in Jerusalem [and people call me] ‘The (Preacher/Religious Teacher)’.
Paroles de l’Ecclésiaste, fils de David, roi dans Jérusalem.
2 I say that everything is mysterious; everything is hard for me to understand; it is difficult to understand why everything happens.
Vanité des vanités! dit l’Ecclésiaste, vanité des vanités! Tout est vanité.
3 (What do people gain from all the work that they do here on the earth?/It seems that people gain no lasting benefit from all the work that they do here on the earth.) [RHQ]
Quel avantage revient-il à l’homme de toute la peine qu’il se donne sous le soleil?
4 [Each year] old people die and babies are born, but the earth never changes.
Une génération passe, une génération vient, et la terre subsiste toujours.
5 [Each morning] the sun rises, and [each evening] it sets, and [then] it hurries around to where it started from.
Le soleil se lève, le soleil se couche, et il se hâte de retourner à sa demeure, d’où il se lève de nouveau.
6 The wind blows south, and then it [turns around to start blowing towards] the north. It goes around and around in circles.
Allant vers le midi, tournant vers le nord, le vent se retourne encore, et reprend les mêmes circuits.
7 All the streams flow into the sea, but the sea is never full. The water returns [to the sky], and [when it rains], the water returns to the rivers, and it flows again to the sea.
Tous les fleuves vont à la mer, et la mer n’est pas remplie; vers le lieu où ils se dirigent, ils continuent à aller.
8 Everything is boring, [with the result that] we do not even want to talk about it. We [SYN] see things, but we always want to see more. We [SYN] hear things, but we always want to hear more.
Toutes choses sont en travail, au-delà de ce qu’on peut dire; l’œil n’est pas rassasié de voir, et l’oreille ne se lasse pas d’entendre.
9 [Everything continues to be the same as it has always been]; things that happen have happened previously, and they will happen again. What has been done before will be done again. There is nothing [really] new in this world [MTY].
Ce qui a été, c’est ce qui sera, et ce qui s’est fait, c’est ce qui se fera; et il n’y a rien de nouveau sous le soleil.
10 Sometimes people say, “Look at this! This is something new [RHQ]!” But it has existed previously; it existed before we were born.
S’il est une chose dont on dise: « Vois, c’est nouveau! », cette chose a déjà existé dans les siècles qui nous ont précédés.
11 [People] do not remember the things [that happened] long ago, and in the future, people will not remember what we are doing now.
On ne se souvient pas de ce qui est ancien, et ce qui arrivera dans la suite ne laissera pas de souvenir chez ceux qui vivront plus tard.
12 I, the Religious Teacher, have been the king of Israel [for many years, ruling] in Jerusalem.
Moi, l’Ecclésiaste, j’ai été roi d’Israël à Jérusalem,
13 By being wise, I concentrated on understanding everything that was being done on the earth [MTY]. [But I found out that] God causes [all of] us to experience things that cause us to be unhappy/miserable.
et j’ai appliqué mon cœur à rechercher et à sonder par la sagesse tout ce qui se fait sous les cieux: c’est une occupation pénible à laquelle Dieu impose aux enfants des hommes de se livrer.
14 It seems that nothing that happens on the earth really enables us to do anything useful. It is [like] [MET] chasing the wind.
J’ai examiné toutes les œuvres qui se font sous le soleil: et voici, tout est vanité et poursuite du vent.
15 [Many] things that are crooked cannot be caused to become straight; we cannot count things that do not exist.
Ce qui est courbé ne peut se redresser, et ce qui manque ne peut être compté.
16 I said to myself, “[Hey], I am wiser than any of the kings that ruled in Jerusalem before I [became the king]. I am wiser and I know more than any of them!”
Je me suis dit en moi-même: Voici que j’ai accumulé et amassé de la sagesse, plus que tous ceux qui ont été avant moi à Jérusalem, et mon cœur a possédé amplement sagesse et science.
17 [So] I determined to learn [more] about being wise and to learn about knowing about many things, and [also] to learn about [doing things that are] very foolish [DOU]. [But] I found out that trying to understand those things was also [useless, like] chasing the wind.
J’ai appliqué mon esprit à connaître la sagesse, et à connaître la sottise et la folie; j’ai compris que cela aussi est poursuite du vent.
18 The wiser I became, the more disappointed I became. The more things I knew about, the sadder I became.
Car avec beaucoup de sagesse on a beaucoup de chagrin, et celui qui augmente sa science augmente sa douleur.
