1 Then Bildad the Shuhite answered and said:
2 "How long will you talk like this, while the words of your mouth are a blustering wind?
3 Does God twist justice, or does the Almighty twist what is right?
4 If your sons sinned against him, then he gave them over to the power of their transgression.
5 If you yourself will look early to God and seek the favor of the Almighty,
6 if you are pure and upright, then even now he will stir himself on your behalf and restore the dwelling of your righteousness.
7 Your beginning may have been small, but your end would greatly increase.
8 For ask, please, of the generation of old, and give heed to what their fathers discovered;
9 for we are of yesterday and know nothing, because our days on earth are a shadow.
10 Will they not instruct you and speak to you, and bring forth words from their heart?
11 Does the papyrus shoot up without a marsh? Does the reed grow without water?
12 While it is still in flower and uncut, it dries up ahead of any grass.
13 So are the ways of all who forget God; the hope of the godless will come to nothing.
14 What he relies on snaps, and what he trusts is a spider's house.
15 He leans against his house, and it will not stand; he grips it, and it will not hold.
16 He is lush before the sun, and his shoots go out over his garden.
17 His roots are wrapped around a pile of stones; he gazes on a house of stones.
18 If he is uprooted from his place, it will disown him: 'I never saw you.'
19 Look, that is the delight of his way, and from the soil others will sprout.
20 Look, God does not spurn the blameless, nor does he grasp the hand of evildoers.
21 He will yet fill your mouth with laughing and your lips with a glad shout.
22 Those who hate you will be clothed in shame, and the tent of the wicked will be gone."