Thy Strong Word — Job 8-9: Bildad: “Your Children Must Have Deserved it, Job.”

² “How long will you say these things,
    and the words of your mouth be a great wind?
³ Does God pervert justice?
    Or does the Almighty pervert the right?
⁴ If your children have sinned against him,
    he has delivered them into the hand of their transgression.
⁵ If you will seek God
    and plead with the Almighty for mercy,
⁶ if you are pure and upright,
    surely then he will rouse himself for you
    and restore your rightful habitation.
⁷ And though your beginning was small,
    your latter days will be very great.

⁸ “For inquire, please, of bygone ages,
    and consider what the fathers have searched out.
⁹ For we are but of yesterday and know nothing,
    for our days on earth are a shadow.
¹⁰ Will 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?
¹² While yet in flower and not cut down,
    they wither before any other plant.
¹³ Such are the paths of all who forget God;
    the hope of the godless shall perish.
¹⁴ His confidence is severed,
    and his trust is a spider’s web.^[a]
15 He leans against his house, but it does not stand;
    he lays hold of it, but it does not endure.
¹⁶ He is a lush plant before the sun,
    and his shoots spread over his garden.
¹⁷ His roots entwine the stone heap;
    he looks upon a house of stones.
¹⁸ If he is destroyed from his place,
    then it will deny him, saying, ‘I have never seen you.’
¹⁹ Behold, this is the joy of his way,
    and out of the soil others will spring.

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

² “Truly I know that it is so:
    But how can a man be in the right before God?
³ If one wished to contend with him,
    one could not answer him once in a thousand times.
⁴ He is wise in heart and mighty in strength
    —who has hardened himself against him, and succeeded?—
⁵ he who removes mountains, and they know it not,
    when he overturns them in his anger,
⁶ who shakes the earth out of its place,
    and its pillars tremble;
⁷ who commands the sun, and it does not rise;
    who seals up the stars;
⁸ who alone stretched out the heavens
    and trampled the waves of the sea;
⁹ who made the Bear and Orion,
    the Pleiades and the chambers of the south;
¹⁰ who does great things beyond searching out,
    and marvelous things beyond number.
¹¹ Behold, he passes by me, and I see him not;
    he moves on, but I do not perceive him.
¹² Behold, he snatches away; who can turn him back?
    Who will say to him, ‘What are you doing?’

¹³ “God will not turn back his anger;
    beneath him bowed the helpers of Rahab.
¹⁴ How then can I answer him,
    choosing my words with him?
¹⁵ Though I am in the right, I cannot answer him;
    I must appeal for mercy to my accuser.^[b]
16 If I summoned him and he answered me,
    I would not believe that he was listening to my voice.
¹⁷ For he crushes me with a tempest
    and multiplies my wounds without cause;
¹⁸ he will not let me get my breath,
    but fills me with bitterness.
¹⁹ If it is a contest of strength, behold, he is mighty!
    If it is a matter of justice, who can summon him?^[c]
20 Though I am in the right, my own mouth would condemn me;
    though I am blameless, he would prove me perverse.
²¹ I am blameless; I regard not myself;
    I loathe my life.
²² It is all one; therefore I say,
    ‘He destroys both the blameless and the wicked.’
²³ When disaster brings sudden death,
    he mocks at the calamity^[d] of the innocent.
²⁴ The earth is given into the hand of the wicked;
    he covers the faces 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.
²⁶ They go by like skiffs of reed,
    like an eagle swooping on the prey.
²⁷ If I say, ‘I will forget my complaint,
    I will put off my sad face, and be of good cheer,’
²⁸ I become afraid of all my suffering,
    for I know you will not hold me innocent.
²⁹ I shall be condemned;
    why then do I labor in vain?
³⁰ If I wash myself with snow
    and cleanse my hands with lye,
³¹ yet you will plunge me into a pit,
    and my own clothes will abhor me.
³² For he is not a man, as I am, that I might answer him,
    that we should come to trial together.
³³ There is no^[e] arbiter between us,
    who might lay his hand on us both.
³⁴ Let him take his rod away from me,
    and let not dread of him terrify me.
³⁵ Then I would speak without fear of him,
    for I am not so in myself.