New Living Translation (NLT)

This song I wrote for my God and my friend David.

I cried today when I read your "last words."

What a life you've lived. Man.

So many highs, so many lows.

The songs you wrote, the lyrics you've lived.

Your love for the One—we have that in common, and apart from murder, most of your mistakes I made as well.

Though we've never met, it feels like you're my brother.

We will meet one day, I'm sure. Looking forward to hearing your songs, the way you actually sang them.

I've made a few songs of my own with your lyrics. Hope you don't mind and won't laugh too hard when I play them on my modern-day six-string harp.

At the end of my life, I hope my last words will be similar to yours; allow me to paraphrase:

“The Spirit of the Lord speaks through me; his words are upon my tongue. The God of Israel, of Xander, said to me: ‘The one who lives righteously, who lives in the fear of God, is like the light of morning at sunrise, like a morning without clouds, like the gleaming of the sun on new grass after rain.’

But most of all, I long to hear the One say:

"You are a man after my own heart."

You've touched so many lives, David. This one's for you. May my life be a blessing to others as yours was and still is.

May my life be "like the gleaming of the sun on new grass after rain."