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Job – Chapter 8

Books of The Bible / Book of Job

1 Bildad of Shuah spoke next. He said:

2 How much longer are you going to talk like this and go blustering on in this way?

3 Can God deflect the course of right or Shaddai falsify justice?

4 If your sons sinned against him, he has punished them for their wrong-doing.

5 You for your part, if you are pure and honest, must now seek God, plead with Shaddai.

6 Forthwith his light will shine on you and he will restore an upright man’s house to prosperity.

7 Your former state will seem as nothing to you, so great will your future be.

8 Question the generation that has passed, meditate on the experience of its ancestors-

9 for we children of yesterday, we know nothing, our life on earth passes like a shadow-

10 but they will teach you, they will tell you, and their thought is expressed in these sayings,

11 ‘Can papyrus flourish except in marshes? Without water can the rushes grow?

12 Even when green and before being cut, fastest of all plants they wither.

13 Such is the fate of all who forget God; so perishes the hope of the godless.

14 His hope is nothing but gossamer, his confidence a spider’s web.

15 Let him lean on his house, it will not stand firm; cling to it, it will not hold.

16 Like some lush plant in the sunlight, he sent his young shoots sprouting over the garden;

17 but his roots were twined in a heap of stones, he drew his life among the rocks.

18 Snatch him from his bed, and it denies it ever saw him.

19 Now he rots on the roadside, and others are springing up in the soil.

20 Believe me, God neither spurns anyone of integrity, nor lends his aid to the evil.

21 Once again laughter may fill your mouth and cries of joy break from your lips.

22 Your enemies will be covered with shame and the tent of the wicked will vanish!’