富贵功名，前缘分定，为人切莫欺心。
Wealth and honour, glory and fame, Are predetermined by fate: No one should act against conscience to covet any of them.
正大光明，忠良善果弥深。
Far-going and deep Are the good results of true enlightenment and loyalty.
些些狂妄天加谴，眼前不遇待时临。
Heaven punishes all wild and wicked deeds If not at once then later on.
问东君因甚，如今祸害相侵。
Ask the Lord of the East the reason why Disasters now strike him.
话表齐天大圣被众天兵押去斩妖台下，绑在降妖柱上，刀砍斧剁，枪刺剑刳，莫想伤及其身。
The story goes on to tell how the Great Sage Equaling Heaven was escorted by the hosts of heavenly soldiers to the Demon-beheading Tower and tied to the Demon-subduing Pillar.
They hacked at him with sabres, sliced at him with axes, lunged at him with spears and cut at him with swords, but they were unable to inflict a single wound on him.
南斗星奋令火部众神，放火煨烧，亦不能烧着。
The Southern Dipper angrily ordered all the gods of the Department of Fire to set him alight and burn him up, but he would not ignite.
又着雷部众神，以雷屑钉打，越发不能伤损一毫。
He told the gods of the Department of Thunder to nail splinters of thunder into him, but however hard they tried they could not harm a hair of his body.
那大力鬼王与众启奏道：“万岁，这大圣不知是何处学得这护身之法，臣等用刀砍斧剁，雷打火烧，一毫不能伤损，却如之何？”
The Strong-arm Demon King and the rest of them then reported this to the throne. “Your Majesty,” they said, “this Great Sage has learned somewhere or other how to protect himself by magic.
Although your subjects have hacked at him with sabres, sliced at him with axes, struck at him with thunder and tried to burn him with fire, we have not been able to harm a hair of his body.
What are we to do?”
玉帝闻言道：“这厮这等……这等如何处治？”
“How can we deal with a wretch like this?” the Jade Emperor asked,
太上老君即奏道：“那猴吃了蟠桃，饮了御酒，又盗了仙丹，——我那五壶丹，有生有熟，被他都吃在肚里。
and the Lord Lao Zi replied to this in a memorial: “That monkey has eaten the peaches of immortality, drunk the imperial liquor, and stolen the pills of elixir.
He swallowed those five gourds of pills of mine, fresh ones and mature ones alike.
运用三昧火，煅成一块，所以浑做金钢之躯，急不能伤。
Now we have used the fire of samadhi on him, which has tempered his body and made it a diamond one that cannot be harmed.
不若与老道领去，放在‘八卦炉’中，以文武火煅炼。
The best course would be to let me take him and put him in my Eight Trigrams Furnace, where I can refine out my elixir with the civil and martial fire
炼出我的丹来，他身自为灰烬矣。”
and reduce him to ashes at the same time.
玉帝闻言，即教六丁、六甲，将他解下，付与老君。
The Jade Emperor then ordered the Six Dings and the Six Jias to untie him and hand him over to the Lord Lao Zi,
老君领旨去讫。
who took him away in obedience to the imperial decree.
一壁厢宣二郎显圣，赏赐金花百朵，御酒百瓶，还丹百粒，异宝明珠，锦绣等件，教与义兄弟分享。
At the same time the Jade Emperor summoned the Illustrious Sage Erlang to his presence and rewarded him with a hundred golden flowers, a hundred jars of imperial liquor, a hundred pills of elixir, rare jewels, lustrous pearls, brocade, embroidery, and other gifts to share with his sworn brothers.
真君谢恩，回灌江口不题。
The True Lord Erlang thanked him for his bounty and returned to Guanjiangkou.
那老君到兜率宫，将大圣解去绳索，放了穿琵琶骨之器，推入八卦炉中，命看炉的道人，架火的童子，将火煽起煅炼。
When he reached the Tushita Palace, Lord Lao Zi had the Great Sage untied, took the hook from his collar-bone, pushed him into the Eight Trigrams Furnace, and ordered the priests in charge of it and the fire-boys to fan the fire up to refine him.
原来那炉是乾、坎、艮、震、巽、离、坤、兑八卦。
Now this furnace was made up of the Eight Trigrams—Qian, Kan, Gen, Zhen, Sun, Li, Kun, and Dui—
他即将身钻在“巽宫”位下。
so he squeezed himself into the “Palace of Sun,”
巽乃风也，有风则无火。
as Sun was the wind, and where there was wind there could be no fire.
只是风搅得烟来，把一双眼熏红了，弄做个老害眼病，故唤作“火眼金睛”。
All that happened was that the wind stirred up the smoke, which made both his eyes red and left him somewhat blind with the illness called “fire eyes with golden pupils.”
真个光阴迅速，不觉七七四十九日，老君的火候俱全。
Time soon passed, and without him realizing it the seven times seven, or forty-nine, days had passed, and Lord Lao Zi's fire had reached the required temperature and burned for long enough.
忽一日，开炉取丹，那大圣双手侮着眼，正自搓揉流涕，只听得炉头声响。
One day the furnace was opened for the elixir to be taken out.
The Great Sage, who was shielding his eyes with both hands and wiping away his tears, heard a noise at the top of the furnace.