Chapter 8

  The Baldad the Suhite answered, and said:  

  How long wilt thou speak these things, and how long shall the words of thy mouth be like a strong wind?  

  Doth God pervert judgment, or doth the Almighty overthrow that which is just?  

  Although thy children have sinned against him, and he hath left them in the hand of their iniquity:  

  Yet if thou wilt arise early to God, and wilt beseech the Almighty:  

  If thou wilt walk clean and upright, he will presently awake onto thee, and will make the dwelling of thy justice peaceable:  

  Insomuch, that if thy former things were small, thy latter things would be multiplied exceedingly.  

  For inquire of the former generation, and search diligently into the memory of the fathers:  

  (For we are but of yesterday, and are ignorant that our days upon earth are but a shadow:)  

  And they shall teach thee: they shall speak to thee, and utter words out of their hearts.  

  Can the rush be green without moisture? or a sedge-bush grow without water?  

  When it is yet in flower, and is not plucked up with the hand, it withereth before all herbs.  

  Even so are the ways of all that forget God, and the hope of the hypocrite shall perish:  

  His folly shall not please him, and his trust shall be like the spider's web.  

  He shall lean upon his house, and it shall not stand: he shall prop it up, and it shall not rise:  

  He seemeth to have moisture before the sun cometh, and at his rising his blossom shall shoot forth.  

  His roots shall be thick upon a heap of stones, and among the stones he shall abide.  

  If one swallow him up out of his place, he shall deny him, and shall say: I know thee not.  

  For this is the joy of his way, that others may spring again out of the earth.  

  God will not cast away the simple, nor reach out his hand to the evildoer:  

  Until thy mouth be filled with laughter, and thy lips with rejoicing.  

  They that hate thee, shall be clothed with confusion: and the dwelling of the wicked shall not stand.