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8Then Bildad the Shuhite answered: ²“How long will you say these things, and the words of your mouth be a great wind? ³Does God pervert justice? Or does the Almighty pervert the right? ⁴If your children sinned against him, he delivered them into the power of their transgression. ⁵If you will seek God and make supplication to the Almighty, ⁶if you are pure and upright, surely then he will rouse himself for you and restore to you your rightful place. ⁷Though your beginning was small, your latter days will be very great.

⁸“For inquire now of bygone generations, and consider what their ancestors have found; ⁹for we are but of yesterday, and we know nothing, for our days on earth are but a shadow. ¹⁰Will they not teach you and tell you and utter words out of their understanding? ¹¹“Can papyrus grow where there is no marsh? Can reeds flourish where there is no water? ¹²While yet in flower and not cut down, they wither before any other plant. ¹³Such are the paths of all who forget God; the hope of the godless shall perish. ¹⁴Their confidence is gossamer, a spider’s house their trust. ¹⁵If one leans against its house, it will not stand; if one lays hold of it, it will not endure. ¹⁶The wicked thrive before the sun, and their shoots spread over the garden. ¹⁷Their roots twine around the stoneheap; they live among the rocks. ¹⁸If they are destroyed from their place, then it will deny them, saying, ‘I have never seen you.’ ¹⁹See, these are their happy ways, and out of the earth still others will spring.

²⁰“See, God will not reject a blameless person, nor take the hand of evildoers. ²¹He will yet fill your mouth with laughter, and your lips with shouts of joy. ²²Those who hate you will be clothed with shame, and the tent of the wicked will be no more.”

9Then Job answered: ²“Indeed I know that this is so; but how can a mortal be just before God? ³If one wished to contend with him, one could not answer him once in a thousand. ⁴He is wise in heart, and mighty in strength—who has resisted him, and succeeded?— ⁵he who removes mountains, and they do not know it, when he overturns them in his anger; ⁶who shakes the earth out of its place, and its pillars tremble; ⁷who commands the sun, and it does not rise; who seals up the stars; ⁸who alone stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the Sea; ⁹who made the Bear and Orion, the Pleiades and the chambers of the south; ¹⁰who does great things beyond understanding, and marvelous things without number. ¹¹Look, he passes by me, and I do not see him; he moves on, but I do not perceive him. ¹²He snatches away; who can stop him? Who will say to him, ‘What are you doing?’ ¹³“God will not turn back his anger; the helpers of Rahab bowed beneath him.

¹⁴How then can I answer him, choosing my words with him? ¹⁵Though I am innocent, I cannot answer him; I must appeal for mercy to my accuser. ¹⁶If I summoned him and he answered me, I do not believe that he would listen to my voice. ¹⁷For he crushes me with a tempest, and multiplies my wounds without cause; ¹⁸he will not let me get my breath, but fills me with bitterness. ¹⁹If it is a contest of strength, he is the strong one! If it is a matter of justice, who can summon him? ²⁰Though I am innocent, my own mouth would condemn me; though I am blameless, he would prove me perverse. ²¹I am blameless; I do not know myself; I loathe my life.

²²It is all one; therefore I say, he destroys both the blameless and the wicked. ²³When disaster brings sudden death, he mocks at the calamity of the innocent. ²⁴The earth is given into the hand of the wicked; he covers the eyes of its judges— if it is not he, who then is it?

²⁵“My days are swifter than a runner; they flee away, they see no good. ²⁶They go by like skiffs of reed, like an eagle swooping on the prey. ²⁷If I say, ‘I will forget my complaint; I will put off my sad countenance and be of good cheer,’ ²⁸I become afraid of all my suffering, for I know you will not hold me innocent. ²⁹I shall be condemned; why then do I labor in vain? ³⁰If I wash myself with soap and cleanse my hands with lye, ³¹yet you will plunge me into filth, and my own clothes will abhor me. ³²For he is not a mortal, as I am, that I might answer him, that we should come to trial together. ³³There is no umpire between us, who might lay his hand on us both. ³⁴If he would take his rod away from me, and not let dread of him terrify me, ³⁵then I would speak without fear of him, for I know I am not what I am thought to be.

10“I loathe my life; I will give free utterance to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul. ²I will say to God, Do not condemn me; let me know why you contend against me. ³Does it seem good to you to oppress, to despise the work of your hands and favor the schemes of the wicked? ⁴Do you have eyes of flesh? Do you see as humans see? ⁵Are your days like the days of mortals, or your years like human years, ⁶that you seek out my iniquity and search for my sin, ⁷although you know that I am not guilty, and there is no one to deliver out of your hand?

⁸Your hands fashioned and made me; and now you turn and destroy me. ⁹Remember that you fashioned me like clay; and will you turn me to dust again? ¹⁰Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese? ¹¹You clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews. ¹²You have granted me life and steadfast love, and your care has preserved my spirit. ¹³Yet these things you hid in your heart; I know that this was your purpose.

¹⁴If I sin, you watch me, and do not acquit me of my iniquity. ¹⁵If I am wicked, woe to me! If I am righteous, I cannot lift up my head, for I am filled with disgrace and look upon my affliction. ¹⁶Bold as a lion you hunt me; you repeat your exploits against me. ¹⁷You renew your witnesses against me, and increase your vexation toward me; you bring fresh troops against me. ¹⁸“Why did you bring me forth from the womb? Would that I had died before any eye had seen me, ¹⁹and were as though I had not been, carried from the womb to the grave. ²⁰Are not the days of my life few? Let me alone, that I may find a little comfort ²¹before I go, never to return, to the land of gloom and deep darkness, ²²the land of gloom and chaos, where light is like darkness.”