4 I sprang to my feet, leaving the dinner untouched, carried the dead man from the square, and put him in one of the rooms until sundown, so that I might bury him.
5 I returned and washed and in sorrow ate my food.
6 I remembered the oracle pronounced by the prophet Amos against Bethel:“I will turn your feasts into mourning,and all your songs into dirges.”
7 Then I wept. At sunset I went out, dug a grave, and buried him.
8 My neighbors mocked me, saying: “Does he have no fear? Once before he was hunted, to be executed for this sort of deed, and he ran away; yet here he is again burying the dead!”
9 That same night I washed and went into my courtyard, where I lay down to sleep beside the wall. Because of the heat I left my face uncovered.
10 I did not know that sparrows were perched on the wall above me; their warm droppings settled in my eyes, causing white scales on them. I went to doctors for a cure, but the more they applied ointments, the more my vision was obscured by the white scales, until I was totally blind. For four years I was unable to see, and all my kindred were distressed at my condition. Ahiqar, however, took care of me for two years, until he left for Elam.