Job 8

Bildad Speaks to Job

8Then Bildad the Shuhite answered:

²“How long will you say such things?

Your words are no more than wind.

³God does not twist justice;

the Almighty does not make wrong what is right.

⁴Your children sinned against God,

and he punished them for their sins.

⁵But you should ask God for help

and pray to the Almighty for mercy.

⁶If you are good and honest,

he will stand up for you

and bring you back where you belong.

⁷Where you began will seem unimportant,

because your future will be so successful.

⁸“Ask old people;

find out what their ancestors learned,

⁹because we were only born yesterday and know nothing.

Our days on earth are only a shadow.

¹⁰Those people will teach you and tell you

and speak about what they know.

¹¹Papyrus plants cannot grow where there is no swamp,

and reeds cannot grow tall without water.

¹²While they are still growing and not yet cut,

they will dry up quicker than grass.

¹³That is what will happen to those who forget God;

the hope of the wicked will be gone.

¹⁴What they hope in is easily broken;

what they trust is like a spider’s web.

¹⁵They lean on the spider’s web, but it breaks.

They grab it, but it does not hold up.

¹⁶They are like well-watered plants in the sunshine

that spread their roots all through the garden.

¹⁷They wrap their roots around a pile of rocks

and look for a place among the stones.

¹⁸But if a plant is torn from its place,

then that place rejects it and says, ‘I never saw you.’

¹⁹Now joy has gone away;

other plants grow up from the same dirt.

²⁰“Surely God does not reject the innocent

or give strength to those who do evil.

²¹God will yet fill your mouth with laughter

and your lips with shouts of joy.

²²Your enemies will be covered with shame,

and the tents of the wicked will be gone.”