¹Then Bildad the Shuhite answered,

• ²“How long will you speak these things?
• Shall the words of your mouth be a mighty wind?

• ³Does God pervert justice?
• Or does the Almighty pervert righteousness?

• ⁴If your children have sinned against him,
• He has delivered them into the hand of their disobedience.

• ⁵If you want to seek God diligently,
• make your supplication to the Almighty.

• ⁶If you were pure and upright,
• surely now he would awaken for you,

• and make the habitation of your righteousness prosperous.
• ⁷Though your beginning was small,

• yet your latter end would greatly increase.

• ⁸“Please inquire of past generations.
• Find out about the learning of their fathers.

• ⁹(For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing,
• because our days on earth are a shadow.)

• ¹⁰Shall they not teach you, tell you,
• and utter words out of their heart?

• ¹¹“Can the papyrus grow up without mire?
• Can the rushes grow without water?

• ¹²While it is yet in its greenness, not cut down,
• it withers before any other reed.

• ¹³So are the paths of all who forget God.
• The hope of the godless man shall perish,

• ¹⁴Whose confidence shall break apart,
• Whose trust is a spider’s web.

• ¹⁵He shall lean on his house, but it shall not stand.
• He shall cling to it, but it shall not endure.

• ¹⁶He is green before the sun.
• His shoots go forth over his garden.

• ¹⁷His roots are wrapped around the rock pile.
• He sees the place of stones.

• ¹⁸If he is destroyed from his place,
• then it shall deny him, saying, ‘I have not seen you.’

• ¹⁹Behold, this is the joy of his way:
• out of the earth, others shall spring.

• ²⁰“Behold, God will not cast away a blameless man,
• neither will he uphold the evildoers.

• ²¹He will still fill your mouth with laughter,
• your lips with shouting.

• ²²Those who hate you shall be clothed with shame.
• The tent of the wicked shall be no more.”