1. What are the illusions of the ignorant but shadows?
And the judgment of arrogance is nothing but error.

2. Indeed, the rule of food is but sleep,
And so is the boldness of the wretched but fantasy.

3. He who is deceitful should not claim justice,
For the just does not scheme.

4. Or be defiant and claim love,
For the loving does not betray.

5. Every unjust and unequal judgment
Is oppression, wrongdoing and treachery.

6. Any law judged without requiring truth and justice
Is null judgement by right.

7. What peace that seeks rights yet suppresses them
Is nothing but tumult and fighting.

8. Many wars bring one closer to God than
A peace which breeds conflict.

9. And parting from hateful things is better
Than a union which ends in parting.

10. If good disappears then evil disappears from evil,
Which in the end passes away.

11. If you have bleary eyes then do not desire a cure,
For that is impossible.

12. Apply kohl to the eye before it goes blind,
For kohl is no use after blindness.

13. And plant the sapling and water it before its time,
For late rain is of no use.

14. What distorted Rehoboam’s heart so he inclined
And his tribes turned away from him?

15. Then Shishak king of Egypt so humiliated him
That he suffered the wrath of the son of Jesse.

16. But for the evil advisor, every scoundrel
Lacking in wisdom and unable to deduce.

17. Who looks down on people in arrogance and conceit,
Lost from the truth in confusion.

18. Do not belittle one who is inactive, for many a weakling,
His fighting is avoided by champions.

19. The frail mosquito, the weakest of creatures,
Feared by the fierce lion.

20. And the most abject of beasts take flight from it
Fearing its affliction, even elephants.

21. And it is ignorance to play with a viper,
Lethal if toyed with by cubs.

22. O brilliant and prominent one whom this discourse addresses,
Which the ignorant miss the wisdom of attaining.

23. He who guards the wolf is treacherous,
Evil of heart, a plunderer and killer.

24. He who prefers injustice over truth
Is known for his aggression, a miserable wretch.

25. The most unjust of blamers are those who blame the oppressed,
Examples of whom have spread in the world.

26. Do not feel safe from fate on a day
When you will reap as you have sown.

27. One’s nobility is through justice, not
The extent of one's cunning—that is misguidance.

28. Souls are not adorned by the glamour of anything,
Just as price does not degrade them.

29. Nor is their honor through amassing wealth,
Just as poverty does not humiliate them.

30. Nor pride in wielding power—
No soul is ennobled by what it cannot handle.

31. True pride is in one’s virtuous traits
Which are adorned by refinement.

32. Whoever has refined traits and wisdom,
Will never fall from the peak of perfection.

33. Many are diseased in themselves yet annoyed
By the pleasure of God, to whom is the final return.

34. Oh happy with their deeds but not
With the Master who weighs all deeds!

35. So let us ask our hearts for honesty in us,
For that guides us better than one we ask.

36. What use is contention when our hearts
Hold destructive fires of passion?

37. And why enmity and nurturing grudges,
When there is disagreement and obsession?

38. If we fight each other
And our disputes never cease,

39. The end will be our destruction and perishing
Through mutual friction as our bond dissolves.

40. Are we the people of Gad and Tsama,
Nations scattered whom war had pardoned?

41. Or are we beasts, some watching for others,
Denying affection—their nature is to fight?

42. Or are we people without a Scripture or Law,
To whom the forbidden and lawful are equal?

43. Or have the lanterns guiding us gone dark,
And we see no difference between guidance and error?

44. Or did our resolve weaken and make us weak
With a descent no tongue can describe?

45. Or did we become cheap in conscience and so
There is none to restrain what we invent?

46. Or did the passion of our souls become like scissors
When they grew firm and were covered in rust?

47. A sword will rust without sharpening,
And a blade is sharpened by sharpening.

48. We are people of a Law of favor,
Whose goodness has reached the utmost favor.

49. We are children of God's covenant—it is most fit
For us to fight it than abandon it.

50. We are messengers of guidance, preaching the truth
So that error besides it will vanish.

51. We are the light of the world—if light
Becomes darkness, how can darkness make light?

52. Will the war of Babylon suffice
To keep Jerusalem? Or will fighting cease?

53. Verily the banners of our self-love are diseased,
Deadly to the soul, crippling and fatal.

54. Every malady has a cure but the disease of self-love—
A resistant illness and grave ordeal!

55. Souls do not incline to justice unless
They have in themselves an inclination to it,

56. And taking on injury replaces however much
Corruption was in them taking hold.

57. A wound which hurts—and if it is cast aside
Alas, will it be brought together to heal?

58. Oppression has an appointed end from which
It cannot flee, and its disappearance is calamities.

59. The state of the defiant did not last,
So how can the wretched hope it will last?

60. The situation requires only patience
For a time which turns situations around.

61. To each time is destined a state
And leadership according to its situation and men.

62. And in order for the pure to emerge and the mature singled out,
The sieve must shake us.

63. All above this dust is impossible,
For all things change and alternate.

64. Nothing's state is fixed except
He who has eternal might and majesty.

65. My Lord is just, and that suffices me.
He never places so much as an atom unjustly.