I just saw your comment Lionfish.

What Dan said.

When you translate the original Hittite taking into account modern-liberal-historical-critical-literary-readerresponse-postmodern criticism it becomes obvious.

1) It is worth noting the parallelism in the ancient Hittite poetic form. See how the poet contrasts the tightness and security of the “sucked” with the looseness and instability of the “not held rigidly”; and the loftiness of the “hill” with the lowliness of the “shit” or “waste”.

2) The opening words “For it was, see” is an emphatic sentence of its own. It refers to all that follows. It does not function as a qualifier of the immediate next phrase. It serves a similar rhetorical purpose as the “Amen Amen” of the Greek.

3) It is well known that “sphincter clause” has long been disputed and like the NRSV (New Rev’s Special Version) I prefer to omit it. It could be explained as a gloss from early Hebrew translators who noted in the margin that the Hittite word for waste could also mean shit - an addition that may have been then traslated back into the original Hittite.

4) The use of “song” and “service” has a double meaning not easily represented in English. The same words were used of a worshiper in a temple setting as a witness in a legal court. A transaltion that suggests either is acceptable. One that can imply both is best.

Put this together and we have my preferred translation:

“See, it was:
The testimony of those in lofty places
held tight.
While those who thoughtlessly wasted money
were loose during the procedings.”

It affirms that those who are rich and powerful can be trusted with more money, while those with low finances are to be mistrusted and should not even keep their own money lest they loose that too by dishonesty or waste. It would be far better for the high and mighty to take it from them, since the rich obviously know what to do with it better than the poor.

Now, I just phoned the pope and he’s says you’re getting fourteen million years in purgatory for this blasphemy but it’s your lucky day, I just happen to have in my possession the left big toenail and three nasal hairs of Simeon Stylites who waited atop a pole in the fourth century for a glimpse of santa and I’ll let you kiss them for a small fee… say… fifty bucks and a slab of cold ones, mates rates?

rev