Eclesiastés 1
1 Las palabras del Predicador, el hijo de David, rey en 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, dice 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 tiene el hombre De todo su trabajo que hace bajo el 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 Generación va y generación viene, Pero la tierra siempre permanece.
[Each year] old people die and babies are born, but the earth never changes.
5 Sale el sol y se oculta el sol. Se apresura hacia el lugar donde vuelve a salir.
[Each morning] the sun rises, and [each evening] it sets, and [then] it hurries around to where it started from.
6 El viento sopla hacia el sur y vuelve hacia el norte. Gira sin cesar. Vuelve otra vez a sus giros el viento.
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 corren hacia el mar, Y el mar nunca se llena, Al lugar de donde vinieron los ríos, Allí vuelven para volver a correr.
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 fatigosas. El hombre no puede explicarlas. El ojo nunca se sacia de ver, Ni el oído se llena 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 ¿Qué es lo que fue? Lo mismo que será. ¿Qué es lo hecho? Lo mismo que se hará. Nada nuevo hay 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 ¿Hay cosa de la cual se diga: Mira, esto es nuevo? Ya existió en los siglos 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 hay memoria de lo primero. Tampoco de lo último habrá memoria Entre los que vendrán después.
[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 de Israel en Jerusalén.
I, the Religious Teacher, have been the king of Israel [for many years, ruling] in Jerusalem.
13 Dediqué mi corazón a buscar e investigar con sabiduría todo lo que sucede bajo el cielo. Dura tarea que ʼElohim dio a los hijos de hombres para que sean afligidos con 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 Vi todas las obras que se hacen bajo el sol. Ciertamente 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 se puede enderezar, Y lo incompleto no se puede completar.
[Many] things that are crooked cannot be caused to become straight; we cannot count things that do not exist.
16 Hablé a mi corazón: Mira, me engrandecí y crecí en sabiduría sobre todos los que fueron antes de mí en Jerusalén. Mi corazón percibió mucha sabiduría y ciencia.
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 Dediqué mi corazón a obtener sabiduría y a entender la locura y la insensatez. Comprendí que aun 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 Porque en la mucha sabiduría hay mucha frustración, Y el que añade conocimiento añade dolor.
The wiser I became, the more disappointed I became. The more things I knew about, the sadder I became.
