1 Then answered Bildad the Shuchite, and said,
2 How long wilt thou speak these things? and let like a mighty wind be the words of thy mouth?
3 Should God pervert justice? or should the Almighty pervert righteousness?
4 If thy children have sinned against him, then did he send them off through the means of their transgression.
5 If thou wilt earnestly seek for God, and make thy supplication to the Almighty;
6 If thou become pure and upright: surely then will he watch over thee, and restore thy righteous habitation.
7 And thy beginning will have been small; because thy latter end will grow up greatly.
8 For ask, I pray thee, of an earlier generation, and prepare thyself to stand by the research of their fathers;
9 For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because a mere shadow are our days upon earth;
10 Behold, these will truly teach thee, they will speak unto thee, and out of their very heart will they bring forth words:
11 Can the bulrush shoot upward without mire? can the meadowgrass grow up without water?
12 It is yet in its greenness, not yet cut down, when it withereth before any other grass.
13 So are the paths of all that forget God; and the hope of the hypocrite will perish:
14 It is he whose trust will be cut off, and but a spiders web is that in which he confideth.
15 He leaneth against his house, but it shall not stand: he layeth fast hold on it, but it shall not remain erect.
16 He is in full vigor before the sun, and over his garden his shoots go forth.
17 His roots are twisted about a stoneheap, he selecteth for himself a place of stones.
18 But when men destroy him from his place, then will it deny him, saying, I have never seen thee.
19 Behold, this is the joy of his way, and out of the same dust others will grow up.
20 Behold, God will not reject a perfect man, and will not hold fast by their hand the evildoers:
21 Till he fill thy mouth with laughing, and thy lips with joyful shouting.
22 They that hate thee shall be clothed with shame; and the tent of the wicked shall be no more.