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Your body will grow feeble,
your teeth will decay,
    and your eyesight fail.
The noisy grinding of grain
    and the voices of singers
will be shut out
    by your deaf ears,
but even the song of a bird
    will keep you awake.[a]

You will be afraid
to climb up a hill
    or walk down a road.
Your hair will turn as white
    as almond blossoms.
You will feel lifeless
and drag along
    like an old grasshopper.

We each go to our eternal home,
and the streets here are filled
    with those who mourn.

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Footnotes

  1. 12.4 but even the song … awake: One possible meaning for the difficult Hebrew text.

when the keepers of the house tremble,
    and the strong men stoop,
when the grinders cease because they are few,
    and those looking through the windows grow dim;
when the doors to the street are closed
    and the sound of grinding fades;
when people rise up at the sound of birds,
    but all their songs grow faint;(A)
when people are afraid of heights
    and of dangers in the streets;
when the almond tree blossoms
    and the grasshopper drags itself along
    and desire no longer is stirred.
Then people go to their eternal home(B)
    and mourners(C) go about the streets.

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