Job 8

¹ Then Bildad the Shuhite answered:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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