1. How long will greed provoke me,
Is there not enough room for contentment?

2. How excellent is patience and contentment for all people,
If only they were content.

3. It has deceived the night and the day for people
Whom I see lost in illusion and grazing.

4. As for death, it is not heedless,
It gives every living being a drink from its cup.

5. What sensible person enjoys life,
While death is his resort and refuge?

6. People pass away, some following others,
So they are followers and followed.

7. O soul, why do I see you feeling secure
Where there is panic and dread?

8. What has happened to people in the course of their lives
Of events that occur?

9. I have milked time by halves,
In them were vinegar and honey.

10. I care not for what joy has brought,
Nor do I fret over what grief has taken away.

11. Praise God, how the world has played
With people before me, see what they have done.

12. They perished and their appointed time overtook them,
What they had and the days and Fridays.

13. They left wealth but did not take with them
To their graves anything they had gathered.

14. What they sent ahead for themselves
Was of greater benefit than what they left behind.

15. Tomorrow the dead will be called to
The horror of a reckoning and be gathered for it.

16. Tomorrow souls will be paid what they have earned
And the planters will reap what they have sown.

17. Blessed is God, see how
These passions and innovations have toyed with people.

18. Love of the world scattered them in it,
And so they have become factions.