27 An hour's misery makes one forget past delights, and at the close of one's life one's deeds are revealed. 28 Call no one happy before his death; by how he ends, a person becomes known. 29 Do not invite everyone into your home, for many are the tricks of the crafty. 30 Like a decoy partridge in a cage, so is the mind of the proud, and like spies they observe your weakness; 31 for they lie in wait, turning good into evil, and to worthy actions they attach blame.

Let us, then, speak in the customary way — no man ought to speak otherwise — and let us call the time before death come, before death; as it is written, Praise no man before his death. And when it has happened, let us say that after death this or that took place. And of the present time let us speak as best we can, as when we say, He, when dying, made his will, and left this or that to such and such persons,— though, of course, he could not do so unless he were living, and did this rather before death than in death. And let us use the same phraseology as Scripture uses; for it makes no scruple of saying that the dead are not after but in death. So that verse, For in death there is no remembrance of you. For until the resurrection men are justly said to be in death; as every one is said to be in sleep till he awakes.