1. The youth’s existence is deceit, and his life deceit,
So the birds and beasts are better than this abode.

2. And better than a palace built of marble
Is a neighbor, safe from harm, or a nest.

3. He who does not cheat people is deprived of their bounty
And wealth, while the grass around him is dry.

4. So how can the free man live without being a hypocrite
While his companions are like cotton he spreads out and picks?

5. I hated a difficult life and scorned it,
Its first is a cradle and its last a bier.

6. It begins with a push from the womb and a mouthful of soil,
This one has a shroud and that a winding sheet.

7. It is eating and drinking then the sleep of a beast—
The life of a youth soon erased like an inscription.

8. I scorn one born of filth,
And one buried under a pile of rocks.

9. How can man be made in God’s image
When this product of the belly has its source in lewdness?