⁴ Wealth attracts many friends,
    but even the closest friend of the poor person deserts them.^(A)

²⁰ The poor are shunned even by their neighbors,
    but the rich have many friends.^(A)

⁶ Many curry favor with a ruler,^(A)
    and everyone is the friend of one who gives gifts.^(B)

⁷ The poor are shunned by all their relatives—
    how much more do their friends avoid them!^(C)
Though the poor pursue them with pleading,
    they are nowhere to be found.^[a](D)

¹³ “He has alienated my family^(A) from me;
    my acquaintances are completely estranged from me.^(B)
14 My relatives have gone away;
    my closest friends^(C) have forgotten me.
¹⁵ My guests^(D) and my female servants^(E) count me a foreigner;
    they look on me as on a stranger.
¹⁶ I summon my servant, but he does not answer,
    though I beg him with my own mouth.
¹⁷ My breath is offensive to my wife;
    I am loathsome^(F) to my own family.

¹⁵ But my brothers are as undependable as intermittent streams,^(A)
    as the streams that overflow
¹⁶ when darkened by thawing ice
    and swollen with melting snow,^(B)
17 but that stop flowing in the dry season,
    and in the heat^(C) vanish from their channels.
¹⁸ Caravans turn aside from their routes;
    they go off into the wasteland and perish.
¹⁹ The caravans of Tema^(D) look for water,
    the traveling merchants of Sheba^(E) look in hope.
²⁰ They are distressed, because they had been confident;
    they arrive there, only to be disappointed.^(F)
21 Now you too have proved to be of no help;
    you see something dreadful and are afraid.^(G)
22 Have I ever said, ‘Give something on my behalf,
    pay a ransom^(H) for me from your wealth,^(I)
23 deliver me from the hand of the enemy,
    rescue me from the clutches of the ruthless’?^(J)

¹⁵ The wealth of the rich is their fortified city,^(A)
    but poverty is the ruin of the poor.^(B)