1. I wronged myself, though I wanted what would benefit me,
And contended with a wolf, whose driving off I cannot bear.

2. My hands cast me arrows that I could not find
Until my own arrows struck me with a mortal blow.

3. How many an error, had one's zealotry assisted him,
Would have been set aright, and he would have gained more loftiness.

4. Great is my sin, but I am penitent;
He who repents sincerely has exhausted his capacity.

5. If the disciplining of the prince against his disobedient servant
Were entrusted to a judge, he would be most harsh in deterrence.

6. Even if Pharaoh had betrayed, while secure and obedient,
Moses would not have made the rod into a running serpent.

7. If I were a sin, I would be in the fold of His forbearance,
A fleeting mirage that is neither answered nor called.

8. And my crime was compounded by the mockery of a group
Whose tongues never knew piety, so they never kept their tongues.

9. They said that I belittled His blessing by which
I ascended above the celestial spheres and the seven steps.

10. So I forsook my conscience and abandoned my religion;
I contradicted reason and law in my belief in oneness.

11. And if my words or my tongue let slip with it,
It did not pass a night except as deserving of severing.

12. Can I deny the shining sun its illumination,
And claim that the rain yields no crops?

13. If what they told were true, as they related,
Why then did I come, later, to His door entreating?

14. So he who takes Him as patron continues hoping for favor,
While he who makes Him his enemy keeps dreading calamity.

15. And the days continue to carry good tidings to him,
Which show in the heart of his envier a crack.

16. One clear victory followed another,
As if words follow each other in accordance with rhetorical beauty.