² “If someone ventures a word with you, will you be impatient?
    But who can keep from speaking?^(B)
3 Think how you have instructed many,^(C)
    how you have strengthened feeble hands.^(D)
4 Your words have supported those who stumbled;^(E)
    you have strengthened faltering knees.^(F)
5 But now trouble comes to you, and you are discouraged;^(G)
    it strikes^(H) you, and you are dismayed.^(I)
6 Should not your piety be your confidence^(J)
    and your blameless^(K) ways your hope?

⁷ “Consider now: Who, being innocent, has ever perished?^(L)
    Where were the upright ever destroyed?^(M)
8 As I have observed,^(N) those who plow evil^(O)
    and those who sow trouble reap it.^(P)
9 At the breath of God^(Q) they perish;
    at the blast of his anger they are no more.^(R)

¹⁷ ‘Can a mortal be more righteous than God?^(A)
    Can even a strong man be more pure than his Maker?^(B)
18 If God places no trust in his servants,^(C)
    if he charges his angels with error,^(D)
19 how much more those who live in houses of clay,^(E)
    whose foundations^(F) are in the dust,^(G)
    who are crushed^(H) more readily than a moth!^(I)