1Then Bildad the Shuhite answered and said,
2"How long will you speak like this? How long will the words of your mouth be like a strong wind?"
3"Does God twist judgment? Does the Almighty twist justice?"
4"If your children have sinned against him, then he has cast them away for their wrongdoing."
5"But if you would seek God early, and make your prayer to the Almighty,"
6"if you were pure and upright, then surely he would rouse himself for you, and make the home of your righteousness prosper."
7"Though your beginning was small, your end would grow very great."
8"Ask, I beg you, about the age that has gone, and be ready to search out what their fathers learned."
9"(For we are only of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days on earth are a shadow.)"
10"Will they not teach you, and tell you, and speak words out of their heart?"
11"Can the reed grow up without mud? Can the rushes grow without water?"
12"While it is still green, and not cut down, it dries up before any other plant."
13"So it is with the paths of all who forget God. The hope of the hypocrite will perish."
14"His hope will be cut off, and what he trusts in is a spider's web."
15"He will lean on his house, but it will not stand. He will hold it tight, but it will not last."
16"He is green in the sunlight, and his branch shoots out in his garden."
17"His roots are wrapped around the heap of stones, and he looks for a place among the stones."
18"If God destroys him from his place, then it will deny him, saying, 'I have never seen you.'"
19"Look, this is the joy of his way, and out of the earth others will grow."
20"Look, God will not cast away a blameless man, and he will not help the evildoers,"
21"until he fills your mouth with laughing, and your lips with shouts of joy."
22"Those who hate you will be clothed with shame, and the dwelling place of the wicked will come to nothing."