The days pass and fly away. The hours run without stopping. In the headlong rush of time the world nears its end.
Not one day will allow another to accompany it; not one hour will wait for another that they might fly by together. Just as it is impossible to stop and hold back running water with one's fingers, so the life of one born of woman cannot remain stationary. The life of each person who enters the world is already weighed and measured - he has neither the means nor the ability to step beyond the appointed limit.
God has determined the measure of man's life, and the days divide this appointed measure into parts.
Each day imperceptibly takes its part away from your life and each hour unrestrainably runs along its course with its little share. The days destroy your life, the hours subvert its edifice, and you rush to your end, for you are but vapor. The days and the hours, like thieves and robbers, rob and steal from you. The thread of your life is gradually torn and shortened. The days deliver your life up to burial, the hours lay it in the grave, and together with the days and the hours does your life on earth disappear.
The life that you live today will depart and fly away at the end of this day, for every day takes away its part of your life and leaves with it.
Every day delivers its part up to burial; every hour lays its portion in the grave, and in the swift flight of time they depart, disappear and are transformed into nothingness. So swiftly do the days pass, so quickly too does life fly by - it has no opportunity to stop and stand in one place. If the sun were to stand still in the heights and the moon were to be restrained from its movements, then the time appointed for your life could also stop, could cease rushing to its end.
Grant me, O Lord, the remedy of conversion, that I might be healed of all the evil that is in me.
Grant that I might enter the realm of restraint.
Grant that I might spend all the days of my life in contrition of heart.
Enlighten the clouded eyes of my mind, that I might rush zealously to embark on the path that leads to Thy vineyard. The time of my life has run low, spent in vain cares and shameful thoughts. My life has come upon the eleventh hour. For the hour of departure has arrived - it already looms before my eyes - and I took fright exceedingly when I saw my poverty.
Grant me, O Lord, heartfelt repentance - unto Life Eternal.
Glory to Thee Our God.
+ Glory to Thee for All Things +
Ephraim the Syrian
