1. My friend, are you absent or present, Oh Na'aman?
Whether you are near or far, the absent may return someday and awaken affection.

2. Umar and Amer are our fathers, and they were true to their word.
Are they preventing you, or is it lack of messengers?

3. Or are you blaming and angry with me?
Or estranged? Or have you been commanded to spurn me?

4. When I was sure my messenger pleased you,
I sent you that caravan.

5. Then they said your cousin was preoccupied with urgent affairs brought by the young men.
So kinship, love and companionship were severed

6. by what time brought.
Or maybe the letter has no value to the seller.

7. Branches grow only where the trees are lively and fresh.
You see no spring or stream in the arid wasteland

8. where the bitter wormwood grows.
Know that a spear is but a conduit,

9. or like some of the flexible rods without barbs.
But once the barbs are affixed,

10. it becomes a spear, its strikes lethal.
With it the armored man defends himself,

11. and with it the coward kills the free man.
Do not diminish me because I am pledged

12. to the clan - pledges can be dissolved.
Know that I am your brother and none like me

13. would be spurned by his brothers.
Know that I have sworn solemn oaths

14. though few believe oaths binding.
You will never see another letter from me

15. except this one which will soon disappear.
Unless the snow melts from the mountains

16. and Lebanon becomes a desert plain,
Or the wild cows are seen in Syria

17. and it becomes the land of the deer,
Or I seek refuge in your letters

18. to string together their three panels.
Love and advice live in the heart

19. not in what the tongue can shape.
The worst clarity is when love

20. seems to bloom but malice lies beneath.