The Greek proverb which is translated directly by some English versions as “kick against the goads (=a spiked stick used for driving cattle)” and refers to “pointless fighting” became “throw chaff into the wind” in the Khmer Standard Version translation of 2005 (the translators also considered “spit vertically upwards”). (Source David Clark)

In Lalana Chinantec it is translated as “as a bull which kicks a sharp stick which his owner holds so do you,” in Teutila Cuicatec as “you are doing the same as an ox that is hurting itself, kicking the sharp stick that people drive it with,” in Xicotepec De Juárez Totonac as “like a horse when it kicks the stick with which it is driven” (source for this and two above: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.), and in Elhomwe as “because you are against me, you are hurting yourself” (source: project-specific translation notes in Paratext).

In Russian, the phrase Трудно тебе идти против рожна (Trudno tebe idti protiv rozhna) or “kick against the goads” is widely used as an idiom in every-day life, with the meaning of undertaking a risky action against constraint imposed by tradition or authority. The wording of the quote originated in the Russian Synodal Bible (publ. 1876). (Source: Reznikov 2020, p. 63f.)