Section 4:1-3

Abusing other people is an evil business

4:1a Again I looked, and I considered all the oppression taking place under the sun.

Again I thought about all the oppressive actions here in this world.
-or-
Then I looked again at all the injustice that goes on in this world. (Good News Translation)
-or-
Then I turned to consider all the ways people oppress others here on earth. (FBV)

4:1b I saw the tears of the oppressed, and they had no comforter;

Look! Oppressed people are weeping. But no one helps them.
-or-
Look at the tears of the oppressed—there’s no one to comfort them! (FBV)

4:1c the power lay in the hands of their oppressors, and there was no comforter.

The people who oppress them are powerful. ⌊And so⌋ no one helps them.
-or-
Powerful people oppress them, and there’s no one to comfort them! (FBV)

4:1a-b (combined)

Then I looked again at all the injustice that goes on in this world. The oppressed were crying, and no one would help them. No one would help them, because their oppressors had power on their side. (Good News Translation)
-or-
In every place on the earth, I saw cruel people. Some people were crying because the cruel people were hurting them. There was nobody to help them. They were too weak to help themselves. (EASY2015)
-or-
Again I saw that many people are treated badly. I saw their tears, and I saw that there was no one to comfort them. I saw that cruel people had all the power, and I saw that there was no one to comfort the people they hurt. (English Easy-to-Read Version)

© 2006 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.