Chapter 8

  And Bildad the Shuhite answereth and saith: --  

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  Till when dost thou speak these things? And a strong wind -- sayings of thy mouth?  

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  Doth God pervert judgment? And doth the Mighty One pervert justice?  

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  If thy sons have sinned before Him, And He doth send them away, By the hand of their transgression,  

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  If thou dost seek early unto God, And unto the Mighty makest supplication,  

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  If pure and upright thou [art], Surely now He waketh for thee, And hath completed The habitation of thy righteousness.  

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  And thy beginning hath been small, And thy latter end is very great.  

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  For, ask I pray thee of a former generation, And prepare to a search of their fathers,  

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  (For of yesterday we [are], and we know not, For a shadow [are] our days on earth.)  

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  Do they not shew thee -- speak to thee, And from their heart bring forth words?  

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  'Doth a rush wise without mire? A reed increase without water?  

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  While it [is] in its budding -- uncropt, Even before any herb it withereth.  

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  So [are] the paths of all forgetting God, And the hope of the profane doth perish,  

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  Whose confidence is loathsome, And the house of a spider his trust.  

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  He leaneth on his house -- and it standeth not: He taketh hold on it -- and it abideth not.  

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  Green he [is] before the sun, And over his garden his branch goeth out.  

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  By a heap his roots are wrapped, A house of stones he looketh for.  

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  If [one] doth destroy him from his place, Then it hath feigned concerning him, I have not seen thee!  

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  Lo, this [is] the joy of his way, And from the dust others spring up.'  

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  Lo, God doth not reject the perfect, Nor taketh hold on the hand of evil doers.  

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  While he filleth with laughter thy mouth, And thy lips with shouting,  

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  Those hating thee do put on shame, And the tent of the wicked is not!  

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