¹Then Bildad the Shuhite answered and said,

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

³Does God twist justice, or does the Almighty twist righteousness?

⁴If your sons sinned against him, then he gave them over into the hand of their transgression.

⁵If you yourself seek God early, and implore the Almighty for favor,

⁶if you are pure and upright, surely now he will rouse himself over you and make whole the dwelling of your righteousness.

⁷And your beginning will be small, and your latter end will grow exceedingly.

⁸For ask, please, of a former generation, and make ready for what their fathers searched out,

⁹for we are of yesterday and know nothing, for our days upon the land are a shadow.

¹⁰Will they not teach you and speak to you, and bring out words from their heart?

¹¹Does papyrus rise high where there is no swamp? Do reeds grow large without water?

¹²While it is still in its greenness, not plucked off, yet before any grass it dries up.

¹³So are the paths of all who forget God, and the hope of the godless will perish,

¹⁴whose confidence will snap, and whose trust is a spider's house.

¹⁵He leans on his house, but it will not stand; he takes hold of it, but it will not rise up.

¹⁶He is moist with sap before the sun, and his young shoots go out over his garden.

¹⁷His roots are interwoven over a heap; he sees a house of stones.

¹⁸If someone swallows him down from his place, it will deny him: I have not seen you.

¹⁹Behold, this is the joy of his way, and from the dust others will sprout.

²⁰Behold, God does not reject the blameless, and he does not take hold of the hand of evildoers.

²¹Until he fills your mouth with laughter, and your lips with a shout of joy.

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