12 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;^[a]
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.

¹¹ The words of the wise are like iron-tipped prods;
    the collected sayings of the masters
        are like nails fixed firmly by a shepherd.^[b]
12     Be careful, my child, of anything beyond them!