The Babylonian Theodicy (ca. 2000 BCE)

Most particular friend, your advice is excellent,

Let me put but one matter before you;

Those who seek not after a god can go the road of favor,

Those who pray to a goddess have grown poor and destitute,

Indeed, in my youth I tried to find out the will of my god,

With prayer and supplication I besought my goddess.

I bore a yoke of profitless servitude,

My god decreed for me poverty instead of wealth

A cripple rises above me, a fool is ahead [of] me,

Rogues are in the ascendant, I am demoted.

Adept scholar, master of erudition,

You blaspheme in the anguish of your thoughts,

Divine purpose is as remote as innermost heaven,

It is too difficult to understand, people cannot understand it.