Moff PSA Chapter 49

49 For the choirmaster’s collection of Korahite songs.

49 Hear this, all ye nations,

listen, all ye inhabitants of the world,

2 low-born and high,

rich and poor, all of you.

3 My message will be wise and good,

a baffling truth on which I brood;

4 and as I catch its meaning dim,

I render on the lyre this hymn:

5 Why should I be afraid when times are bad,

and all around I see my treacherous foes,

6 men who rely upon their riches,

and boast of their abounding wealth?

7 Why, none can buy himself off;

not one can purchase for a price from God

9 life that shall never end.

10 What! “Never die?” but die they must—

the clever have to die,

the stupid and the senseless perish,

leaving their money to others;

11 their home eternal is the grave below

the dwelling where they must abide;

they vanish from men’s memory, although

they claimed lands for their own.

12 For all their splendour that they cherish,

men pass, even as the beasts that perish.

13 Such is the fate of the self-satisfied,

the end of all whose faith is in themselves;

14 death shepherds them unchecked,

driving them down to the world below;

ere long their form and fashion waste away,

and they abide within the world below.

15 (But God can ransom me;

he will release me from the grasp of death.)

16 So fear not when a man grows rich,

and when the splendour of his house increases;

17 he can take nothing with him when he dies,

his splendour will not follow him below.

18 In life he flatters himself on his fortune,

praising himself for his prosperity;

19 but down he goes to where his fathers dwell,

who see no light to all eternity.

20 For all the splendour that they cherish,

men pass, even as the beasts that perish.