¹⁹ It’s better to live alone in the desert
    than with a quarrelsome, complaining wife.

⁹ It’s better to live alone in the corner of an attic
    than with a quarrelsome wife in a lovely home.

⁵ How I suffer in far-off Meshech.
    It pains me to live in distant Kedar.
⁶ I am tired of living
    among people who hate peace.

^2 [a]Oh, that I could go away and forget my people
    and live in a travelers’ shack in the desert.
For they are all adulterers—
    a pack of treacherous liars.

⁶ Oh, that I had wings like a dove;
    then I would fly away and rest!
⁷ I would fly far away
    to the quiet of the wilderness. Interlude