1I have seen something else here on this earth that troubles people.

2God enables some people to get a lot of money and possessions and to be honored; they have everything [LIT] that they want. But God sometimes does not allow them to continue to enjoy those things. Someone else gets them and enjoys them. That seems senseless and unfair.

3Someone might have 100 children and live for many years. But if he is not able to enjoy the things that he has acquired, and if he is not buried properly after he dies, I say that a child that is dead when it is born is more fortunate.

4That dead baby’s birth is meaningless; it does not even have a name. It goes directly to the place where there is only darkness.

5It does not live to see the sun or know anything. But it finds more rest than rich people do who are alive.

6Even if people could live for 2,000 years, if they do not enjoy the things that God gives to them, it would have been better for them never to have been born. All people who live a long time certainly [RHQ] all go to the same place— to the grave.

7People work hard to earn enough money to buy food to eat [MTY], but often they never get enough to eat.

8So it seems that [RHQ] wise people do not receive more lasting benefits than foolish people do. And it seems that [RHQ] poor people do not benefit from knowing how to conduct their lives.

9It is better to enjoy the things that we already have [MTY] than to constantly want more things; continually wanting more things is senseless, like chasing the wind.

10All the things that exist on the earth have been given names. And everyone knows what people are like, so it is useless to argue with someone (OR, with God) who is stronger than we are.

11The more that we talk, the more often we say things that are senseless,
so it certainly does not [RHQ] benefit us to talk a lot.

12We live for only a short time; we disappear like [SIM] a shadow disappears in the sunlight. No one [RHQ] knows what is best for us while we are alive, and no one [RHQ] knows what will happen to us after we die [EUP].