Chapter 5

¹“Call now; is there any who will answer you?

To which of the holy ones will you turn?

²For resentment kills the foolish man,

And jealousy kills the simple.

³I have seen the foolish taking root,

But suddenly I cursed his habitation.

⁴His children are far from safety,

They are crushed in the gate.

Neither is there any to deliver them,

⁵Whose harvest the hungry eats up,

And take it even out of the thorns;

The snare gapes for their substance.

⁶For affliction doesn’t come forth from the dust,

Neither does trouble spring out of the ground;

⁷But man is born to trouble,

As the sparks fly upward.

⁸“But as for me, I would seek God,

To God would I commit my cause;

⁹Who does great things that can’t be fathomed,

Marvelous things without number;

¹⁰Who gives rain on the earth,

And sends waters on the fields;

¹¹So that he sets up on high those who are low,

Those who mourn are exalted to safety.

¹²He frustrates the devices of the crafty,

So that their hands can’t perform their enterprise.

¹³He takes the wise in their own craftiness;

The counsel of the cunning is carried headlong.

¹⁴They meet with darkness in the day time,

And grope at noonday as in the night.

¹⁵But he saves from the sword of their mouth,

Even the needy from the hand of the mighty.

¹⁶So the poor has hope,

And injustice shuts her mouth.

¹⁷“Behold, happy is the man whom God corrects:

Therefore do not despise the chastening of the Almighty.

¹⁸For he wounds, and binds up;

He injures, and his hands make whole.

¹⁹He will deliver you in six troubles;

Yes, in seven there shall no evil touch you.

²⁰In famine he will redeem you from death;

In war, from the power of the sword.

²¹You shall be hidden from the scourge of the tongue,

Neither shall you be afraid of destruction when it comes.

²²At destruction and famine you shall laugh,

Neither shall you be afraid of the animals of the earth.

²³For you shall be in league with the stones of the field.

The animals of the field shall be at peace with you.

²⁴You shall know that your tent is in peace.

You shall visit your fold, and shall miss nothing.

²⁵You shall know also that your seed shall be great,

Your offspring as the grass of the earth.

²⁶You shall come to your grave in a full age,

Like a shock of grain comes in its season.

²⁷Look this, we have searched it, so it is;

Hear it, and know it for your good.”