Chapter 5

¹Call now if there be any that will answer thee, and turn to some of the saints. ²Anger indeed killeth the foolish, and envy slayeth the little one. ³I have seen a fool with a strong root, and I cursed his beauty immediately. ⁴His children shall be far from safety, and shall be destroyed in the gate, and there shall be none to deliver them. ⁵Whose harvest the hungry shall eat, and the armed man shall take him by violence, and the thirsty shall drink up his riches. ⁶Nothing upon earth is done without a voice cause, and sorrow doth not spring out of the ground. ⁷Man is born to labour and the bird to fly. ⁸Wherefore I will pray to the Lord, and address my speech to God: ⁹Who doth great things and unsearchable and wonderful things without number: ¹⁰Who giveth rain upon the face of the earth, and watereth all things with waters: ¹¹Who setteth up the humble on high, and comforteth with health those that mourn. ¹²Who bringeth to nought the designs of the malignant, so that their hands cannot accomplish what they had begun: ¹³Who catcheth the wise in their craftiness, and disappointeth the counsel of the wicked: ¹⁴They shall meet with darkness in the day, and grope at noonday as in the night. ¹⁵But he shall save the needy from the sword of their mouth, and the poor from the hand of the violent. ¹⁶And to the needy there shall he hope, but iniquity shall draw in her mouth. ¹⁷Blessed is the mall whom God correcteth: refuse not therefore the chastising of the lord: ¹⁸For he woundeth, and cureth: he striketh, and his hands shall heal. ¹⁹In six troubles he shall deliver thee, and in the seventh, evil shall not touch thee. ²⁰In famine he shall deliver thee from death: and in battle, from the hand of the sword. ²¹Thou shalt he hidden from the scourge of the tongue: and thou shalt not fear calamity when it cometh. ²²In destruction and famine then shalt laugh: and thou shalt not be afraid of the beasts of the earth. ²³But thou shalt have a covenant with the stones of the lands, and the beasts of the earth shall be at pence with thee. ²⁴And thou shalt know that thy tabernacle is in peace, and visiting thy beauty thou shalt not sin. ²⁵Thou shalt know also that thy seed shall be multiplied, and thy offspring like the grass of the earth. ²⁶Thou shalt enter into the grave in abundance, as a heap of wheat is brought in its season. ²⁷Behold, this is even so, as we have searched oat: which thou having heard, consider it thoroughly in thy mind.