Ecclesiastes 1
1 [I am Solomon], the son of [King] David. [I rule] in Jerusalem [and people call me] ‘The (Preacher/Religious Teacher)’.
Palabras del Predicador, hijo de David, rey en Jerusalén.
2 I say that everything is mysterious; everything is hard for me to understand; it is difficult to understand why everything happens.
Vanidad de vanidades, dijo el Predicador; vanidad de vanidades, todo es vanidad.
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]
¿Qué provecho tiene el hombre de todo su trabajo con que se afana debajo del sol?
4 [Each year] old people die and babies are born, but the earth never changes.
Generación va, y generación viene; mas la tierra siempre permanece.
5 [Each morning] the sun rises, and [each evening] it sets, and [then] it hurries around to where it started from.
Y sale el sol, y se pone el sol, y con deseo retorna a su lugar donde vuelve a nacer.
6 The wind blows south, and then it [turns around to start blowing towards] the north. It goes around and around in circles.
El viento va al mediodía, y rodea al norte; va rodeando de continuo, y por sus rodeos vuelve el viento de nuevo hasta completar su ciclo.
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.
Los ríos todos van al mar, y el mar no se llena; al lugar de donde los ríos vinieron, allí vuelven para correr de nuevo.
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.
Todas las cosas andan en trabajo más de lo que el hombre pueda decir; los ojos nunca se sacian de ver, ni los oídos de oír.
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].
¿Qué es lo que fue? Lo mismo que será. ¿Qué es lo que ha sido hecho? Lo mismo que se hará; y nada hay nuevo debajo del sol.
10 Sometimes people say, “Look at this! This is something new [RHQ]!” But it has existed previously; it existed before we were born.
¿Hay algo de que se pueda decir: He aquí esto es nuevo? Ya fue en los siglos que nos han precedido.
11 [People] do not remember the things [that happened] long ago, and in the future, people will not remember what we are doing now.
No hay memoria de los primeros, ni tampoco de los postreros habrá memoria en los que serán después.
12 I, the Religious Teacher, have been the king of Israel [for many years, ruling] in Jerusalem.
Yo el Predicador fui rey sobre Israel en Jerusalén.
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.
Y di mi corazón a inquirir y buscar con sabiduría sobre todo lo que se hace debajo del cielo (este penoso trabajo dio Dios a los hijos de los hombres, en que se ocupen).
14 It seems that nothing that happens on the earth really enables us to do anything useful. It is [like] [MET] chasing the wind.
Yo miré todas las obras que se hacen debajo del sol; y he aquí, todo ello es vanidad y aflicción de espíritu.
15 [Many] things that are crooked cannot be caused to become straight; we cannot count things that do not exist.
Lo torcido no se puede enderezar; y lo falto no puede contarse.
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!”
Hablé yo con mi corazón, diciendo: He aquí yo me he engrandecido, y he crecido en sabiduría sobre todos los que fueron antes de mí en Jerusalén; y mi corazón ha percibido mucha sabiduría y ciencia.
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.
Y di mi corazón a conocer la sabiduría, y la ciencia; y las locuras y los desvaríos conocí al fin que aun esto era aflicción de espíritu.
18 The wiser I became, the more disappointed I became. The more things I knew about, the sadder I became.
Porque en la mucha sabiduría hay mucha tristeza; y quien añade ciencia, añade dolor.
