1: Listen, everyone, listen--earth-dwellers, don't miss this.
2: All you haves and have-nots, All together now: listen.
3: I set plainspoken wisdom before you, my heart-seasoned understandings of life.
4: I fine-tuned my ear to the sayings of the wise, I solve life's riddle with the help of a harp.
5: So why should I fear in bad times, hemmed in by enemy malice,
6: Shoved around by bullies, demeaned by the arrogant rich?
7: Really! There's no such thing as self-rescue, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.
8: The cost of rescue is beyond our means, and even then it doesn't guarantee
9: Life forever, or insurance against the Black Hole.
10: Anyone can see that the brightest and best die, wiped out right along with fools and dunces.
11: They leave all their prowess behind, move into their new home, The Coffin, The cemetery their permanent address. And to think they named counties after themselves!
12: We aren't immortal. We don't last long. Like our dogs, we age and weaken. And die.
13: This is what happens to those who live for the moment, who only look out for themselves:
14: Death herds them like sheep straight to hell; they disappear down the gullet of the grave; They waste away to nothing--nothing left but a marker in a cemetery.
15: But me? God snatches me from the clutch of death, he reaches down and grabs me.
16: So don't be impressed with those who get rich and pile up fame and fortune.
17: They can't take it with them; fame and fortune all get left behind.
18: Just when they think they've arrived and folks praise them because they've made good,
19: They enter the family burial plot where they'll never see sunshine again.
20: We aren't immortal. We don't last long. Like our dogs, we age and weaken. And die. An Asaph psalm