1. It is as if I see the dwellings ruined,
And copious tears being shed.

2. You have exposed - no, wounded - and debased, O world,
Men who attacked you.

3. Death is a reality, home is transitory,
And every soul gets what it earns.

4. What a rotten corpse you are!
How can it resist when called upon?

5. Transgressors hover over it,
Not caring what they ride.

6. It was ever aggrieved -
No good comes of the world when tested.

7. People are heedless though
The appointed times are at hand and drawing near.

8. Not every needy person attains his goal -
How many a hand reaches not what it sought!

9. Among people are those whose demands
Are sometimes easy, sometimes hard.

10. The soul's wickedness may at times rage,
And the soul's passions at times prevail.

11. Whoever is not content with sufficiency -
The world is straitened for him however ample.

12. And just when the world suits a person,
Fulfilling his desires, it is overturned.

13. No eye I saw with has belied me -
Yet the eye may sometimes belie.

14. What life remains when life is severed?
What taste to joy when it goes?

15. Woe to deluded minds
In what byways have they got stuck!

16. Who would check its onslaughts and
Quench its fires when they flare up?

17. Who would comfort him for its woes
And soothe the world when it recoils?

18. O Lord, a seeing eye that brings harm -
Such an eye will suffer from what it brought.