Spiritual Investment

¹ Remember your creator in your prime, before the days of trouble arrive, and those years, about which you’ll say, “I take no pleasure in these” ² before the sun and the light grow dark, the moon and the stars too, before the clouds return after the rain; ³ on the day when the housekeepers tremble and the strong men stoop; when the women who grind stop working because they’re so few, and those who look through the windows grow dim; ⁴ when the doors to the street are shut, when the sound of the mill fades, the sound of the bird rises, and all the singers come down low; ⁵ when people are afraid of things above and of terrors along the way; when the almond tree blanches, the locust droops, and the caper-berry comes to nothing; when the human goes to the eternal abode, with mourners all around in the street; ⁶ before the silver cord snaps and the gold bowl shatters; the jar is broken at the spring and the wheel is crushed at the pit; ⁷ before dust returns to the earth as it was before and the life-breath returns to God who gave it.