3 8.7.8.7.7.7.8.8
1 Do not run ahead so quickly!
Watch the rugged road with care!
Make your calculations thickly
While the earthly’s still your share!
Constant anguish may stalk you,
As your tomb stands to mock you,
Headwinds batter you and beat you,
On all sides miseries meet you.
2 Oh how many days are cheerless,
Darkened by the Devil’s path,
By his cheating deceit fearless,
Led astray and into wrath.
Everyone caught in his sins
Believes himself saved and grins,
Until the day of his dying,
When hell meets him undenying.
3 If he only could returning
Leave that horrid state of hell,
After tasting of its burning,
And the end of wishful spell,
And could start his life again,
On the earth slate clean and plain,
He’d take careful note and lending
To where his pathways were tending.
4 There’s no sound now of repenting,
Though from sin the market crowd
Jesus commands all relenting
Come beneath his mercy’s shroud.
Bravely does no sinner fear
Though his fateful death is near,
Stupidly he comes forsaking
The kernel for the husk he’s taking.
5 Vain is the time that’s being spent
Plotting, playing, frolicking.
The competition’s pleasure tent
Is open morn and evening.
Sinners adding their sins up,
Filling the Deceiver’s cup:
Why are they his slaves who ought
To be the folk their Lord has bought?
6 Your name, O Jesus, brought to shame
By every sinful journey,
Your Word’s abused and used for blame,
Butt of clown and attorney.
Damnation’s on every tongue,
Prisoners the devil stung,
Condemned to judgment for their spite:
The fuel for hell fires burning bright.
7 Don’t you think that you’ll be surprised
By hell fire’s retribution?
Your tomb walls’ marks are realized:
Mene, tekel, upharsin.
Come stand before the Lord’s throne,
Answer for your sins alone,
Before you death’s carriage waiting,
This is your last hour belating.
8 Nations of all heathen countries,
Far beyond the seas and isles,
Little of God’s laws confrontings,
Nothing knowing of faith’s smiles,
Shall at last in judgment stand
On the sinful Christian band
That until the last judgment hour
Lived far worse than in pagan power.
9 Still voices of preachers are heard
Proclaim faith and repentance,
And glory attained by the Word,
Rest to our souls in sentence,
But since vanity’s so dear
The folk’s consciences to sear,
They do not hear the Lord’s pleading
Nor come to follow in His leading.
10 Woe, woe unto your wretchedness
Come at the end of your life,
If you come to time’s endlessness
Conscience sleeping, your sin rife!
Bow down now in humble prayer,
Contrite on the good Lord’s stair,
Make sure of your true repentance,
Or sorrowful be your sentence.