CHAPTER 8
1And Bildad the Shuhite spoke out and he said,
2How long will you jabber such things?—
the words of your mouth, one huge wind.
3 Would God pervert justice,
would Shaddai pervert what is right?
4If your children offended Him,
He dispatched them because of their crime.
5If you yourself sought out El,
and pleaded to Shaddai,
6if you were honest and pure,
by now He would rouse Himself for you,
and would make your righteous home whole.
7Then your beginning would seem a trifle
and your latter day very grand.
8 For ask, pray, generations of old,
take in what their fathers found out.
9 For we are but yesterday, unknowing,
for our days are a shadow on earth.
10Will they not teach you and say to you,
and from their heart bring out words?
11 Will papyrus sprout with no marsh,
reeds grow grand without water?
12Still in its blossom, not yet plucked,
before any grass it will wither.
13Thus is the end of all who forget God,
and the hope of the tainted is lost.
14Whose faith is mere cobweb,
a spider’s house his trust.
15He leans on his house and it will not stand,
he grasps it and it does not endure.
16 —He is moist in the sun,
and his tendrils push out in his garden.
17 Round a knoll his roots twist,
on a stone house they take hold.
18If his place should uproot him
and deny him—“I never saw you,”
19why, this is his joyous way,
from another soil he will spring.
20Look, God will not spurn the blameless,
nor hold the hand of evildoers.
21He will yet fill your mouth with laughter
and your lips with a shout of joy.
22Your foes will be clothed in disgrace,