Job 8

Bildad’s First Response to Job

¹Then Bildad the Shuhite answered and said,[#Hebrew “And”; #Hebrew “he said”]

²“How long will you say these things,[#Literally “Until when”]

and the words of your mouth be a mighty wind?

³Does God pervert justice,

or Shaddai pervert righteousness?

⁴If your children sinned against him,

then he sent them into the power of their transgression.

⁵If you yourself would seek God,[#Emphatic personal pronoun]

then you would plead to Shaddai for grace.

⁶If you are pure and upright,

indeed, now he will rouse himself for you,

and he will restore your righteous abode.

⁷Though your beginning was small,[#Hebrew “And”]

your end will be very great.

⁸“Indeed, please inquire of former generations,[#Or “For”]

and consider what their ancestors have found,

⁹for we are of yesterday, and we do not know,

for our days on earth are a shadow.

¹⁰Will they themselves not teach you and tell you[#Emphatic personal pronoun; #Literally “they will say to you”]

and utter words from their heart?

¹¹Can papyrus grow tall where there is not a marsh?

Will reeds flourish without water?

¹²While it is in its flower and is not plucked,

yet it withers before all grass.

¹³So are the paths of all who forget God;

and the hope of the godless will perish,

¹⁴whose confidence is cut off

and whose trust is a spider’s house.

¹⁵He will lean himself against his house, but it will not stand;[#Hebrew “and”]

he will take hold of it, but it will not endure.

¹⁶He is thriving before the sun,[#Literally “soaked,” or “well-watered”; #Literally “to the faces of”]

and his plant shoots spread over his garden.

¹⁷His roots twine over a stone heap;

he sees a house of stone.

¹⁸If he destroys him from his place,

then it deceives him, saying, ‘I have never seen you.’

¹⁹Look, this is the joy of his way,

and from dust others will spring up.

²⁰“Look, God will not reject the blameless,

and he will not uphold the hand of evildoers.

²¹Yet he will fill your mouth with laughter

and your lips with a shout of joy.

²²Those who hate you will be clothed with shame,

and the tent of the wicked will be no more.”