1Then Bildad the Shuhite answered and said,2How long will you speak these things, and the mighty wind of the words of your lips?3Does God pervert justice, or does the Almighty pervert righteousness?4If your sons have sinned against him, then he has given them into the hand of their transgression.5If you seek God and entreat the Almighty,6If you are pure and upright, for now he will rouse himself for you and restore the habitation of your righteousness,7and though your beginning was small, your end will flourish greatly.8For inquire now of the former age and consider what their fathers have searched out,9for we are of yesterday and we do not know, because our days upon the land are a shadow.10Will they not show you, will they not say to you, and will they not bring speeches out from their heart?11Can the reed rise up where there is no swamp, or can the meadow grow without water?12While it is still in its greenery it is not plucked, and it withers before any grass.13So are the ways of all who forget God, and the hope of the profane perishes,14whose confidence is cut off, and whose trust is the house of the spider.15He leans upon his house, but it does not stand; he strengthens himself in it, but it does not arise.16He is fresh before the sun, and his shoot comes out upon his garden.17His roots interweave upon a heap; he sees a place of stones.18If it swallows him from his place, it denies him, saying, "I have not seen you."19Look, he rejoices in his way, and another springs from the dust.20Look, God does not reject the complete, and he does not strengthen the hand of evil-doers,21Till he fills your mouth with laughter and your lips with a shout.22Those who hate you will clothe themselves with shame, and the tent of the wicked will not be.