Translations
Words like butter pour from his lips;
But his heart is a battlefield;
His speech slides smooth as oil;
Yet every word is a drawn blade.
His mouth is smoother than butter;
Yet his heart is at war;
His words are slicker than oil;
Yet they are drawn swords.
The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart: his words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords.
His speech is smooth as butter, but war is in his heart. His words are softer than oil, yet they are swords unsheathed.
Footnotes
This verse is a masterclass in antithetical parallelism, each line pivoting on a 'yet': smoothness versus warfare, softness versus lethal violence. The contrast between machmao't (butter/cream) and qerav (battle/war), and between shemen (oil) and petichot (drawn swords, literally 'openings'—blades drawn from their sheaths), captures the essence of betrayal: the weapon is concealed within sweetness. F.O.G preserves the grammatical parallelism ('smoother than butter, yet… slicker than oil, yet…') to honor the Hebrew structural elegance; F.O.G.M redistributes the imagery for rhythmic impact and emotional immediacy, keeping both sets of contrasts fully audible.

