Chapter 8

¹The Baldad the Suhite answered, and said: ²How long wilt thou speak these things, and how long shall the words of thy mouth be like a strong wind? ³Doth God pervert judgment, or doth the Almighty overthrow that which is just? ⁴Although thy children have sinned against him, and he hath left them in the hand of their iniquity: ⁵Yet if thou wilt arise early to God, and wilt beseech the Almighty: ⁶If thou wilt walk clean and upright, he will presently awake onto thee, and will make the dwelling of thy justice peaceable: ⁷Insomuch, that if thy former things were small, thy latter things would be multiplied exceedingly. ⁸For inquire of the former generation, and search diligently into the memory of the fathers: ⁹(For we are but of yesterday, and are ignorant that our days upon earth are but a shadow:) ¹⁰And they shall teach thee: they shall speak to thee, and utter words out of their hearts. ¹¹Can the rush be green without moisture? or a sedge-bush grow without water? ¹²When it is yet in flower, and is not plucked up with the hand, it withereth before all herbs. ¹³Even so are the ways of all that forget God, and the hope of the hypocrite shall perish: ¹⁴His folly shall not please him, and his trust shall be like the spider's web. ¹⁵He shall lean upon his house, and it shall not stand: he shall prop it up, and it shall not rise: ¹⁶He seemeth to have moisture before the sun cometh, and at his rising his blossom shall shoot forth. ¹⁷His roots shall be thick upon a heap of stones, and among the stones he shall abide. ¹⁸If one swallow him up out of his place, he shall deny him, and shall say: I know thee not. ¹⁹For this is the joy of his way, that others may spring again out of the earth. ²⁰God will not cast away the simple, nor reach out his hand to the evildoer: ²¹Until thy mouth be filled with laughter, and thy lips with rejoicing. ²²They that hate thee, shall be clothed with confusion: and the dwelling of the wicked shall not stand.