8:1  Then Bildad the Shuhite answered:

8:2  "How long will you say these things, and the words of your mouth be a great wind?

8:3  Does God pervert justice? Or does the Almighty pervert the right?

8:4  If your children have sinned against him, he has delivered them into the power of their transgression.

8:5  If you will seek God and make supplication to the Almighty,

8:6  if you are pure and upright, surely then he will rouse himself for you and reward you with a rightful habitation.

8:7  And though your beginning was small, your latter days will be very great.

8:8  "For inquire, I pray you, of bygone ages, and consider what the fathers have found;

8:9  for we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, for our days on earth are a shadow.

8:10  Will they not teach you, and tell you, and utter words out of their understanding?

8:11  "Can papyrus grow where there is no marsh? Can reeds flourish where there is no water?

8:12  While yet in flower and not cut down, they wither before any other plant.

8:13  Such are the paths of all who forget God; the hope of the godless man shall perish.

8:14  His confidence breaks in sunder, and his trust is a spider's web.

8:15  He leans against his house, but it does not stand; he lays hold of it, but it does not endure.

8:16  He thrives before the sun, and his shoots spread over his garden.

8:17  His roots twine about the stoneheap; he lives among the rocks.

8:18  If he is destroyed from his place, then it will deny him, saying, 'I have never seen you.'

8:19  Behold, this is the joy of his way; and out of the earth others will spring.

8:20  "Behold, God will not reject a blameless man, nor take the hand of evildoers.

8:21  He will yet fill your mouth with laughter, and your lips with shouting.

8:22  Those who hate you will be clothed with shame, and the tent of the wicked will be no more."