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." |