| |
| ANTIGONUS of Socho said: | |
| Be not like servants basely bred, | |
| Who to their master minister | |
| In hope of gift he may confer. | |
| But be you like those servants still, | 5 |
| Who strive to do their master’s will | |
| Without a thought of guerdon given, | |
| And be on you the fear of Heaven. | |
| |
| And this did Rabbi Tarphon say: | |
| The work is great and short the day, | 10 |
| Sluggish the labourers, their Lord | |
| Urgent, but mighty the reward. | |
| He also said: ’Tis not on thee | |
| Incumbent, that thou shouldest end | |
| The work, but neither art thou free | 15 |
| To cease from it. If thou dost spend | |
| Much time in studying the divine | |
| Torah, much guerdon shall be thine, | |
| For faithful thine employer is | |
| To pay thee for thy labour’s sum, | 20 |
| And know thou that the righteous is | |
| Rewarded in the time to come. | |
| |
| And Rabbi Jacob said of old: | |
| Do thou this world of ours behold | |
| As though a vestibule it were | 25 |
| Into the world to come. Prepare | |
| Thyself the Vestibule within, | |
| That thou the hall may’st enter in. | |
| And further thus his saying reads: | |
| One hour’s repentance and good deeds | 30 |
| In this world better is than all | |
| The world to come, but yet withal | |
| In yonder world one hour of bliss | |
| Is better than all life in this. | |
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