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8:1  Then the second of Job’s three friends, Bildad the Shuhite, addressed Job.
8:2  Bildad: How long will you say these things, your words whipping through air like a powerful wind?
8:3  Does God corrupt justice, or does the Highest One corrupt the good?
8:4  If your children sinned against Him, He merely administered the punishment due them for those sins.
8:5  But if you search for God and make your appeal to the Highest One,
8:6  If you are pure and righteous, I have no doubt He will arise for you and restore you to your righteous place.
8:7  From your modest beginnings, the future will be bright before you.
8:8  Ask those who have come and gone! Explore what their fathers learned and taught them.
8:9  For we are not of ages past, nor even of years gone by. We are ignorant creatures of yesterday, and our time on earth is only a shadow.
8:10  But the ancients are not similarly bound, are they? Won’t they speak to and instruct you? Won’t they draw up words from deep within?
8:11  Can papyrus grow tall without a marsh? Can reeds flourish without water?
8:12  Even if they are hardy and unbroken, without water they will dry up before any other plant.
8:13  So it goes with any who forget God. The hope of the godless soon withers and dies.
8:14  His confidence breaks, for he trusts in the tenuous threads of a spider’s web.
8:15  When he leans into his house of silken threads for support, it won’t hold; Though his arms grab to steady him, it will break—he will fall and never get back up.
8:16  Still the godless appears to be a hardy plant, thriving in full sun, sending his shoots across the garden.
8:17  The roots twine and grip the stone heap and search for a home among the rocks.
8:18  If he is pulled up, the place will disown him saying, “I have never seen you.”
8:19  See, his sole joy consists of this: knowing that others will spring from the earth to take his place.
8:20  Do you see it? God will not reject the innocent; He will not reject you or support agents of evil.
8:21  He will fill your mouth with laughter; your lips will spill over into cries of delight.
8:22  Those who hate you will don the garment of shame, and the home of the wicked will disappear.