Eclesiastés 1
1 Palabras del Predicador, hijo de David, rey de Jerusalén.
[I am Solomon], the son of [King] David. [I rule] in Jerusalem [and people call me] ‘The (Preacher/Religious Teacher)’.
2 Vanidad de vanidades, decía el Predicador; vanidad de vanidades; todo es vanidad.
I say that everything is mysterious; everything is hard for me to understand; it is difficult to understand why everything happens.
3 ¿Qué provecho saca el hombre de todo el trabajo con que se afana debajo del sol?
(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 Una generación se va y otra generación viene, mas la tierra es siempre la misma.
[Each year] old people die and babies are born, but the earth never changes.
5 El sol se levanta, el sol se pone, y camina presuroso hacia su lugar, donde nace (de nuevo).
[Each morning] the sun rises, and [each evening] it sets, and [then] it hurries around to where it started from.
6 El viento se dirige hacia el mediodía, declina luego hacia el norte; gira y gira sin cesar el viento, y así retorna girando.
The wind blows south, and then it [turns around to start blowing towards] the north. It goes around and around in circles.
7 Todos los ríos van al mar, y el mar nunca se llena; al lugar de donde los ríos vienen, allá vuelven para correr de nuevo.
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 Todas las cosas son afanes, más de cuanto se puede decir. Los ojos nunca se hartan de ver, ni los oídos se llenan de oír.
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 Lo que fue, eso será; lo que se hizo, lo mismo se hará; nada hay de nuevo bajo el sol.
[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 Si hay una cosa de que dicen: “Mira, esto es nuevo”, también esa existió ya en los tiempos que nos precedieron.
Sometimes people say, “Look at this! This is something new [RHQ]!” But it has existed previously; it existed before we were born.
11 No queda memoria de las cosas pasadas, ni recuerdo de las futuras entre los que han de venir.
[People] do not remember the things [that happened] long ago, and in the future, people will not remember what we are doing now.
12 Yo, el Predicador, fui rey sobre Israel, en Jerusalén.
I, the Religious Teacher, have been the king of Israel [for many years, ruling] in Jerusalem.
13 Y me puse en el corazón averiguar y escudriñar, por medio de la sabiduría, todo cuanto se hace debajo del cielo. Esta dura tarea ha dado Dios a los hijos de los hombres, para que se ocupen en ella.
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 He visto todo cuanto se hace bajo el sol, y he aquí que todo es vanidad y correr tras el viento.
It seems that nothing that happens on the earth really enables us to do anything useful. It is [like] [MET] chasing the wind.
15 Lo torcido no puede enderezarse, y es imposible contar las cosas que faltan.
[Many] things that are crooked cannot be caused to become straight; we cannot count things that do not exist.
16 Dije para mí esto: “Mira cómo soy grande; soy más sabio que cuantos antes de mí fueron en Jerusalén; inmensa es la sabiduría y ciencia que mi corazón ha visto.”
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 Propuse en mi ánimo conocer la sabiduría, y asimismo la necedad y la insensatez; y aprendí que también esto es correr tras el viento.
[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 Pues donde hay mucho saber hay mucha molestia; quien aumenta la ciencia, aumenta el dolor.
The wiser I became, the more disappointed I became. The more things I knew about, the sadder I became.
