Bildad Speaks: Job Should Repent

¹Then Bildad the Shuhite answered and said:

²“How long will you say these things,

and the words of your mouth be a great wind?

³Does God pervert justice?

Or does the Almighty pervert the right?

⁴If your children have sinned against him,

he has delivered them into the hand of their transgression.

⁵If you will seek God

and plead with the Almighty for mercy,

⁶if you are pure and upright,

surely then he will rouse himself for you

and restore your rightful habitation.

⁷And though your beginning was small,

your latter days will be very great.

⁸“For inquire, please, of bygone ages,

and consider what the fathers have searched out.

⁹For we are but of yesterday and know nothing,

for our days on earth are a shadow.

¹⁰Will 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?

¹²While yet in flower and not cut down,

they wither before any other plant.

¹³Such are the paths of all who forget God;

the hope of the godless shall perish.

¹⁴His confidence is severed,

and his trust is a spider's web.1

¹⁵He leans against his house, but it does not stand;

he lays hold of it, but it does not endure.

¹⁶He is a lush plant before the sun,

and his shoots spread over his garden.

¹⁷His roots entwine the stone heap;

he looks upon a house of stones.

¹⁸If he is destroyed from his place,

then it will deny him, saying, ‘I have never seen you.’

¹⁹Behold, this is the joy of his way,

and out of the soil others will spring.

²⁰“Behold, God will not reject a blameless man,

nor take the hand of evildoers.

²¹He will yet fill your mouth with laughter,

and your lips with shouting.

²²Those who hate you will be clothed with shame,

and the tent of the wicked will be no more.”