It is a piece of Wisdom Literature extant on a single clay cuneiform tablet written in Akkadian and attributed to Kalbanum, on the last line, an individual otherwise unknown.

[1] It shares much of its style with an earlier Sumerian work, “Man and His God”, a penitential prayer of the Ur III period.

[2] With sixty-nine lines arranged in ten strophes, each separated by a horizontal line, the work is structured around a dialogue between two people, one of whom has lost favor with both his lord and his personal god, resulting in his intense suffering from an undisclosed illness.

The text is difficult and fragmentary, especially in the middle leading to debate among scholars about its meaning and purpose.

[2]: 77 He protests his innocence, “the wrong I did I do not know!”, and holds his god responsible for his condition.