Turn to your Maker while you are still young, while the hard years are still ahead of you, and the season has not arrived when you will say that the light no longer gives you any pleasure. Sun and moon and stars go dim; the clouds keep coming back after the rain. The hands that guarded the house begin to shake; strong shoulders stoop under their own years. So few grinders are left that the grinding stops, and those who look out find the windows clouded. The doors swing closed, every sound goes quiet, and the smallest bird is enough to end sleep. Heights turn frightening, and so does the road. White comes to the head like an almond in bloom. Even a grasshopper is a weight to carry; appetite goes still as the body thins. A person sets out toward the house that lasts, and in the street the mourners slowly gather. Turn while the silver cord still holds, while the golden bowl is whole, while the pitcher has not broken at the spring and the wheel above the well still turns. The dust goes back to the ground it came from; the breath goes back to the One who first breathed it out. The Teacher searched for honest, pleasing words, setting many proverbs straight and true. Words of wisdom are like goads that move us, like nails secured by one enduring Shepherd. Endless books can weary flesh and thinking; take the final matter into view. Stand in awe of God; do what He has commanded. For every person, this is what the whole of it comes to. Nothing done escapes His weighing, each hidden thing, the good along with the wrong.