1. O Ka'b, your brother is truly foolish,
So steady the loins of your brother, O Ka'b.

2. Will you shed the blood of him who is sorely tried in the heat of mid-day when the serpents twist and turn?
The belts do not proclaim the place of their loins,

3. Yet the tongues of the slanderers do not cease.
I swore an oath, and I am not a liar,

4. Swore the wearer of the garment, yet his mouth was parched.
Before me looms a time of such ill traits,

5. Like the teats of a butcher's sheep, dripping blood.
When its rider wants to tighten its girth,

6. Like a shield covered with the hides of camels,
It was pliant when first it was taken,

7. While lineages and kinships were yet undivided.
You set out to give protection to those who deserved none,

8. Then you left them, though stopping them was your duty.
He who wrongs you, who could wrong you, when you avoid

9. The righteous and consort with the mangy scabbed ones?
War forces even the wrongdoer

10. To the narrow plain, though the open country be vast.
How often is a man seized for the guilt of his clan,

11. While the guilty one goes free, the doer of the deed!