¹ Bildad of Shuah spoke next. He said:

² How much longer are you going to talk like this and go blustering on in this way?

³ Can God deflect the course of right or Shaddai falsify justice?

⁴ If your sons sinned against him, he has punished them for their wrong-doing.

⁵ You for your part, if you are pure and honest, must now seek God, plead with Shaddai.

⁶ Forthwith his light will shine on you and he will restore an upright man's house to prosperity.

⁷ Your former state will seem as nothing to you, so great will your future be.

⁸ Question the generation that has passed, meditate on the experience of its ancestors-

⁹ for we children of yesterday, we know nothing, our life on earth passes like a shadow-

¹⁰ but they will teach you, they will tell you, and their thought is expressed in these sayings,

¹¹ 'Can papyrus flourish except in marshes? Without water can the rushes grow?

¹² Even when green and before being cut, fastest of all plants they wither.

¹³ Such is the fate of all who forget God; so perishes the hope of the godless.

¹⁴ His hope is nothing but gossamer, his confidence a spider's web.

¹⁵ Let him lean on his house, it will not stand firm; cling to it, it will not hold.

¹⁶ Like some lush plant in the sunlight, he sent his young shoots sprouting over the garden;

¹⁷ but his roots were twined in a heap of stones, he drew his life among the rocks.

¹⁸ Snatch him from his bed, and it denies it ever saw him.

¹⁹ Now he rots on the roadside, and others are springing up in the soil.

²⁰ Believe me, God neither spurns anyone of integrity, nor lends his aid to the evil.

²¹ Once again laughter may fill your mouth and cries of joy break from your lips.

²² Your enemies will be covered with shame and the tent of the wicked will vanish!'