1. You show me feigned affection like a counselor,
yet your eyes reveal your heart bears malice towards me.

2. Your tongue flatters me while your absence backbites me,
your harm manifest while your good obscured.

3. You negotiate with those I avoid, shunning them,
while shunning those whose good faith in me is manifest.

4. You befriend those hostile towards me,
making a show of amity while spurning me behind your eyes.

5. I see when independent of us you shun us,
yet cling to us when destitute.

6. To you have I made plain my counsel and wealth alike,
yet neither my counsel nor wealth you would embrace.

7. I see whatever I desire you too desire,
yet what I want, you do not want.

8. From me you take bounty, while I take the like from you -
does each thus take from those who take from him?

9. Would that your good were but enough,
and that your evil from me receded like sated water.

10. Perhaps you intend with your land to keep your distance,
else I shall settle far from your land.

11. Take a friend whose shape is like your shape,
for I desire a righteous friend, not one like you.

12. My Lord did not lead me astray - how then could we walk together,
when your head strays into misleading ways?

13. Your enemy fears my assault should he meet me,
while you, my enemy, do not fear the like.

14. How many dwellings but for my aid would have crumbled,
collapsing from feebleness into oblivion?

15. You called against the Lord and your aid is dark,
while you in injustice and deceit are steeped towards Him.

16. You wish that the fangs of a serpent would strike Him,
a serpent hissing between flickering flames.

17. When the son of your uncle builds glory you do not assist,
saying "No! Would that his building turn to ruin!"

18. You are filled with rage against me, and so
that rage persists until you all but perish from it.

19. An envious soul whose envy eats away at you
does not cease until it is said "Are you possessed?"

20. The genealogists said "He is a fabricator of lineage,
no! Rather, he is consumed by envy."

21. I ransom a man who did not break his covenant of estrangement,
while your estrangement began with the call to break ties.

22. You gathered grossness, backbiting, and gossip -
three shameful traits you do not refrain from.

23. Grossness, wickedness, and dishonor at the cost of repute,
as though you were a deadly viper fled from its lair.

24. So the slanderer casts you into every evil,
oh what an evil one to be so cast by the rash!

25. Do you amass by begging what is your brothers',
while hoarding wealth beyond what your brothers possess?

26. Deceit long concealed by you is manifest,
as a mother concealed her son's affliction.

27. So the critic runs you down into every disgrace.
Oh worst of those run down by the thoughtless fool!