Job / Bildad's Assertion of Retributive Justice

Bildad's Assertion of Retributive Justice

Job 8:1-22

Chapter 8

¹ Then Bildad the Shuhite answered and said. ² How long will you speak these things? And the words of your mouth are a spirit of mighty ones. ³ Does God pervert justice? Or does Shaddai pervert righteousness? ⁴ If your sons sinned against him, and he delivered them into the hand of their transgression. ⁵ If you seek God diligently and plead with Shaddai, ⁶ If you are pure and upright, then for now he will rouse himself over you, and the one confirming the word will give your righteousness. ⁷ And your beginning will be small, and your end will increase greatly. ⁸ For please inquire of a former generation, and establish for yourself by investigating their fathers. ⁹ For we are but of yesterday, and we know nothing, for our days are a shadow. They are set upon the face of the earth. ¹⁰ Will they not teach you? They will say to you, and words will go forth from their heart. ¹¹ Does papyrus grow without marsh? Does reed flourish in a waterless meadow? ¹² While it is still in flower, it is not plucked, and before all grass it dries up. ¹³ In this way the paths of all who forget God, and the hope of the godless, will perish. ¹⁴ which will be cut off like his confidence and a spider's house his trust. ¹⁵ He leans on his house, but it will not stand; he grasps it, but it will not rise. ¹⁶ He is wet before the sun, and his shoot will go out upon his garden. ¹⁷ Its roots entwine upon a heap; it will see a house of stones. ¹⁸ If it swallows him from his place and denies him: "I have not seen you." ¹⁹ Behold, he is the joy of his way, and from dust another will sprout. ²⁰ Look, God will not reject the innocent, nor will he grasp the hand of evildoers. ²¹ until he fills your mouth with laughter and your lips with תרועה. ²² Your haters will wear shame, and the tent of the wicked will not be.