Evil men go wrong all their lives;
they tell lies from the day they are born.
They are full of poison, like snakes;
they stop their ears, like a deaf cobra,
which does not hear the voice of the snake charmer,
or the chant of the clever magician.

I think of myself and of the evil that is in me. I sometimes tell myself that I just don’t hear your voice, so how can I proceed? Now I know that when I don’t hear your voice it is because I have stopped my ears. The deaf cobra. The wily snake. It keeps its poison by closing itself to the charms of the flute in the hands of the skilled magician. Poison to kill others. Poison to make itself cursed among the creatures of earth.

I stop my ears and refuse to hear. I close myself in my stubbornness, and the poison of selfishness brews within me. Then, when I speak, I hurt; when I touch, I burn; when I move among others, I am feared and avoided. Those who know me sense the curse within me, and keep away from me. I become the victim of my own poison, and I am left alone because I have proved myself dangerous.

Open my ears, Lord. Make me docile to your voice, open to your charms. Drain away the poison from inside me, that I may become and be recognised as harmless and friendly to all creatures and all men and women, may be admitted into their company and trusted in friendship.

Do not let me ever lose contact with you. Do not let me interrupt, be it only for a moment, my communication with you. Do not let me close my ears, turn my face, isolate my life. Even when I drift away from you, keep me always within hearing distance, call me, remind me. Do not give me up, Lord, and never permit that I may ignore you.