Sol 6.1

  1. Wine destroys your faith, so beware.

    And it is a guide toward indecency and wrongdoing.

  2. And it is Hell, immediate and deferred.

    So turn the reins away from Hell, and desist.

  3. How many a wealthy person it has plunged into hardship!

    How many a needy person it has plunged into ruin!

  4. The wise have never lodged within their ribs

    anything more harmful than intoxicating drink.

  5. O you who stretch your right hand toward wine,

    may your right hand be paralyzed, whether seller or buyer!

  6. It is all the same whether you lay your fingers on wine

    to drink, or cast them into a brazier.

  7. Two fires—except that this one can only be seen

    with the eye of one who has sight and insight.

  8. Purify your heart of the defilement of its sin,

    or else prepare yourself for the greater torment.

  9. You are defiled so long as you drink regret,

    even if you wash in the water of seven seas.

  10. What do you seek in a drink that leads you

    to a watering place whose lord will distress you when you depart?

  11. You come to the reckoning with it, terrified,

    fearing punishment while you are within sight of it.

  12. If you desire safety, do not be

    among those who travel the rougher road.

  13. Would you sell your faith in error for a gulp?

    Shame upon you, idle when it is time to trade!

  14. How ill-omened it is, that blameworthy gulp!

    It robbed you of your faith without your noticing.

  15. So it is as though I see you at the Resurrection, remorseful,

    grief-stricken, biting your fingertips in regret.

  16. If you do not repent of it, you are a laughingstock

    to onlookers, and a disgrace among your fellows.

  17. And if you lose your reason, you become a beast

    in human skin; that is enough for you—so reflect.

  18. And I have indeed advised you, if you accept my advice,

    O you who are present, yet seem not to have come.

  19. By God, no listener has understood the truth

    who has taken to doubting self-evident knowledge.

  20. So beware: punishment awaits you for drinking it.

    And if you return to repentance, rejoice.

  21. O Lord, we are wrongdoers out of ignorance;

    so pardon us, conceal our faults, and forgive.

Sol 6.1