1. At your door misfortune and fortune knock,
And the standpoints of despair and hope,

2. The Jews have wandered confused by you,
O horizon of fortune and misfortune!

3. Your laughing and frowning face
Has exceeded the capacity of eloquence to describe,

4. Many glorious chapters have been inscribed by it
In the divisions of honor and disgrace.

5. Heads have bowed down before it
While time trembles in fear of it.

6. Many delegations have circled around it
And increased their prayers around it.

7. A star of one who succeeded is joyful,
While one aspiring loss is disappointed.

8. When the cry of the announcer was raised,
And the people were in distress,

9. And the wealth of the countries was plundered
While the earth and sky clamored,

10. I was content with cotton in the pillows
And in the mattresses and blankets.

11. Verily, the wise and reasonable man
Is one who walked the path of salvation.

12. By God, O people, do not increase,
For your hopes are delusions.

13. They are speculations, the hour of death,
And its messengers are the strokes of lightning.

14. The morning of their people is misery,
And they have no false dawn after it.

15. The selves of the innocent have been destroyed
By their treacherous and disloyal arrows.

16. Their descent is death and their ascent
Is a kind of misery and affliction,

17. And they have no covenants with them
Except as women make promises.

18. How many problems it caused and troubles
And resembled the mirage’s flash,

19. And a seed it germinated misfortunes
And produced imminent ruin,

20. And how many wealthy it made lose money
And grow old in the position of judgement!

21. So let the distant one take heed,
And let the prosperous one fear God.

22. For that is the martyred merchant
Who preferred survival over it.