Chapter 48

Listen, you nations far and wide; let all the world give hearing,

poor clods of earth, and men nobly born, for rich and poor the same lesson.

Here are wise words, thoughts of a discerning heart;

mine to overhear mysteries, and reveal, with the harp’s music, things of deep import.

What need have I to be afraid in troubled times, when malice dogs my heels and overtakes me,

malice of foes who trust in their own strength, and boast of their great possessions?

No man can deliver himself from his human lot, paying a ransom-price to God;

too great is the cost of a man’s soul; never will the means be his

to prolong his days eternally and escape death.

True it is, wise men die; but reckless fools perish no less; their riches will go to others,

and the grave will be their everlasting home. Age after age, they will live on there, under the fields they once called their own.

Short is man’s enjoyment of earthly goods; match him with the brute beasts, and he is no better than they.

Fatal path, that ensnares the reckless! Pitiful end of the men that love life!

There they lie in the world beneath, huddled like sheep, with death for their shepherd, the just for their masters; soon, soon their image fades, the grave for its tenement.

But my life God will rescue from the power of that lower darkness, a life that finds acceptance with him.

Do not be disturbed, then, when a man grows rich, and there is no end to his household’s magnificence;

he cannot take all that with him when he dies, magnificence will not follow him to the grave.

While life lasts, he calls himself happy: None but will envy my success;

but soon he will be made one with the line of his fathers, never again to see the light.

Short is man’s careless enjoyment of earthly goods; match him with the brute beasts, and he is no better than they.