² Can a human being be useful to God?
    Can an intelligent person bring profit?
³ Does the Almighty delight in your innocence?
    Does he gain when you perfect your ways?
⁴ Does he rebuke you for your piety,
    bring you in for judgment?

²¹ Get along well with God and be at peace;
    from this something good will come to you.
²² Receive instruction from his mouth;
    put his words in your mind.
²³ If you return to the Almighty,^[a] you will be restored;
    if you keep wrongdoing out of your tent.
²⁴ Lay your prized possession in the dust,
    your gold from Ophir on a rock in a desert streambed.
²⁵ The Almighty will be your prized possession,
    silver piled up for you.
²⁶ Then you will take pleasure in the Almighty;
    lift up your face to God.
²⁷ You will pray to him, and he will hear you;
    you will fulfill your solemn promises.
²⁸ If you decree something, it will stand;
    light will shine on your ways.
²⁹ When they’re humbled, you will say: “Cheer up;
    God will rescue the lowly.
³⁰     He will deliver the guilty;
    they will be saved by your pure hands.”