1. O you who falsely praises malice, making it seem good
You have certainly taken a crooked path to reach it

2. He who tries to make blame into praise cannot succeed
Until the elder returns as an impetuous youth

3. God has ordained the causes of all matters together
So you will never see any of these causes disrupted

4. O you who bury malice in the weakness of your limbs
Evil is the burial for the one whose grave it becomes

5. Malice is a chronic disease with no cure
When its ember flares up, it burns the hearts

6. So seek healing from it through pardoning or reproach
For the troubled heart only heals when it exhales

7. And make seeking the strings (of music) your only goal
Do not bother yourself with trivial matters

8. Pardoning is closer to piety even if a sinner
Wounded the livers or instigated corruption

9. It is enough, in pardoning, that God has made it virtuous
A greeting to the best of those who prayed and were sent

10. I bear witness that if you sinned, you would dislike
Meeting your brother with a rancorous, filthy chest

11. So since you want sins to be mutually forgotten
And to find amiability in him, even if stained

12. How can you praise something which you would hate?
Think, be guided, distinguish all that is muddled

13. What is closest of things to rectitude is not hidden
When one who seeks, seeks it out

14. So return to the truth whether near or far
And do not wish for the pleasure of a child if it is fleeting

15. For he who is slow to uphold a right will have
An opponent hasten and rub dirt in his face

16. Eloquence belongs to truth and the one who argues his case
When the opponent lies defeated before the opponent

17. When my brothers mix their goodness with evil acts
Whether in earnest or fooling around

18. I make my chest like a crucible
That extracts the pure silver, not the filth

19. I do not make it like a basin, praising it
For retaining both good and bad water

20. Nor do I beautify my blameworthy trait to justify it
To myself or speak lies and nonsense

21. Obscuring the faults of the blameworthy to prettify them
Is sinful even if he did not outright lie

22. And blame is doubly blameworthy in one who does not condemn it
For if he ignores his two faults, then he has tripled them

23. Do not add to a fault, for which you can be blamed
The fault of deceit, for you will not become more pure

24. How much has the eloquent falsified and obscured speech
Deceiving minds, but it does not last

25. Though you embellish the ugly outwardly
What was folded from it will unfurl tattered once again