Ecclesiastes 3:16-4:4

New International Reader's Version

¹⁶Here’s something else I saw on earth.

Where people should be treated right,
they are treated wrong.
Where people should be treated fairly,
they are treated unfairly.

¹⁷I said to myself,

“God will judge
godly and sinful people alike.
He has a time for every act.
He has a time to judge everything that is done.”

¹⁸I also said to myself, “God tests human beings. He does this so they can see that in certain ways they are like animals. ¹⁹Surely what happens to animals happens to people too. Death waits for people and animals alike. People die, just as animals do. All of them have the same breath. People don’t have any advantage over animals. Nothing has any meaning. ²⁰People and animals go to the same place. All of them come from dust. And all of them return to dust. ²¹Who can know whether the spirit of a person goes up? Who can tell whether the spirit of an animal goes down into the earth?”

²²So a person should enjoy their work. That’s what God made them for. I saw that there’s nothing better for them to do than that. After all, who can show them what will happen after they are gone?

Suffering, Hard Work and No Friends

4 I looked and saw how much people were suffering on this earth.

I saw the tears of those who are suffering.
    They don’t have anyone to comfort them.
Power is on the side of those who treat them badly.
    Those who are suffering don’t have anyone to comfort them.
²Then I announced that those
    who have already died
are happier than those
    who are still alive.
³But someone who hasn’t been born yet
    is better off than the dead or the living.
That’s because that person hasn’t seen the evil things
    that are done on earth.

⁴I also saw that a person works hard and accomplishes a lot. But they do it only because they want what another person has. That doesn’t have any meaning either. It’s like chasing the wind.