1. We've heard the sermons, if only they'd help us,
And we've read so many verses in books.

2. Every soul will reap what it has sown,
And for it a fixed day is prescribed.

3. The pens have dried from recording
What God sealed for us and ordained.

4. How many eminent kings we've seen
Whose rule time reversed and changed.

5. And slaves who assumed their masters' thrones,
So kingship settled and remained with them.

6. Say not of what's past, "If only
It had not been yesterday."

7. Make room for today, leave tomorrow's worries,
For each day brings you trouble enough.

8. One flees from death yet can one
Flee from death by fleeing?

9. Every soul will taste death once;
For death there is no cure.

10. O people, how strange is your heedlessness!
What astonishment at your neglect!

11. Ailments, then death descending,
Then grave, resurrection, and reckoning.

12. Reckoning, recording book,
Scales and fire aflame.

13. A path - he who veers off it
Will suffer prolonged disgrace and toil.

14. God alone suffices me as God,
No, by God's life, this is no game.