Eklezyas 1
1 Men pawòl pitit David la, filozòf la, ki te wa nan lavil Jerizalèm.
[I am Solomon], the son of [King] David. [I rule] in Jerusalem [and people call me] ‘The (Preacher/Religious Teacher)’.
2 Nan lavi a anyen pa vo anyen. Se sa filozòf la di. Non, anyen pa vo anyen nan lavi a. Tout bagay gen pou pase.
I say that everything is mysterious; everything is hard for me to understand; it is difficult to understand why everything happens.
3 Yon moun te mèt pase tout lavi l' ap travay di, ap bay kò l' traka sou latè beni, kisa sa rapòte l'?
(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]
4 Moun fèt, moun mouri. Men sa pa deranje anyen sou latè.
[Each year] old people die and babies are born, but the earth never changes.
5 Solèy leve, solèy kouche. L'ap kouri tounen kote pou l' leve a ankò.
[Each morning] the sun rises, and [each evening] it sets, and [then] it hurries around to where it started from.
6 Van an soufle soti nan nò desann nan sid. Apre sa, li vire soti nan sid moute nan nò. Konsa, l'ap vire tounen nan menm chemen an san rete.
The wind blows south, and then it [turns around to start blowing towards] the north. It goes around and around in circles.
7 Tout dlo larivyè desann nan lanmè, men lanmè pa janm plen. Dlo a tounen kote larivyè a te soti a. Konsa, larivyè a pa janm sispann koule.
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.
8 Tout bagay ap vire won san rete. Pa gen pawòl ki ka di jan sa ye. Je pa janm bouke wè. Zòrèy pa janm bouke tande.
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.
9 Sa ki te rive anvan, se sa ki va rive apre. Sa yo te fè anvan an, se sa y'ap toujou fè. Pa gen anyen ki chanje sou latè beni.
[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].
10 Menm lè nou di: Gade! Men yon bagay ki nèf, bagay la te la deja depi nan tan lontan anvan nou te fèt.
Sometimes people say, “Look at this! This is something new [RHQ]!” But it has existed previously; it existed before we were born.
11 Pesonn pa chonje sa ki te pase nan tan lontan. Konsa tou, pita, pesonn p'ap chonje sa k'ap pase koulye a.
[People] do not remember the things [that happened] long ago, and in the future, people will not remember what we are doing now.
12 Mwen menm, nèg fò, mwen te wa peyi Izrayèl nan lavil Jerizalèm.
I, the Religious Teacher, have been the king of Israel [for many years, ruling] in Jerusalem.
13 Mwen te soti pou m' te fouye, pou m' te egzaminen tou sa k'ap fèt sou latè nan tout ti detay yo. Travay Bondye bay moun fè sou latè a pa manke rèd.
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.
14 Mwen wè tou sa k'ap fèt sou latè. Anyen pa vo anyen! Anyen pa rapòte anyen.
It seems that nothing that happens on the earth really enables us to do anything useful. It is [like] [MET] chasing the wind.
15 Ou pa ka drese sa ki fin kwochi. Ou pa ka konte sa ou pa genyen.
[Many] things that are crooked cannot be caused to become straight; we cannot count things that do not exist.
16 Mwen di nan kè mwen: Mwen vin grannèg. Mwen vin pi fò pase tout wa ki t'ap gouvènen lavil Jerizalèm anvan m' yo. Mwen konnen sa ki rele gen konprann ak konesans.
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!”
17 Mwen te soti pou m' te konnen diferans ki genyen ant moun ki gen konprann ak moun egare, ant moun ki gen konesans ak moun sòt. Men, la ankò, mwen wè anyen pa rapòte anyen.
[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.
18 Paske plis ou gen konprann, se plis ou nan tèt chaje. Plis ou konnen, se plis ou soufri.
The wiser I became, the more disappointed I became. The more things I knew about, the sadder I became.
