² If someone attempts a word with you, would you mind?
    How can anyone refrain from speaking?
³ Look, you have instructed many,
    and made firm their feeble hands.
⁴ Your words have upheld the stumbler;
    you have strengthened faltering knees.
⁵ But now that it comes to you, you are impatient;
    when it touches you, you are dismayed.
⁶ Is not your piety a source of confidence,
    and your integrity of life your hope?
⁷ Reflect now, what innocent person perishes?^(A)
    Where are the upright destroyed?
⁸ As I see it, those who plow mischief
    and sow trouble will reap them.
⁹ By the breath of God they perish,^(B)
    and by the blast of his wrath they are consumed.
¹⁰ Though the lion^[a] roars, though the king of beasts cries out,
    yet the teeth of the young lions are broken;
¹¹ The old lion perishes for lack of prey,
    and the cubs of the lioness are scattered.
¹² A word was stealthily brought to me,^[b]
    my ear caught a whisper of it.
¹³ In my thoughts during visions of the night,^(C)
    when deep sleep falls on mortals,
¹⁴ Fear came upon me, and shuddering,
    that terrified me to the bone.
¹⁵ Then a spirit passed before me,
    and the hair of my body stood on end.
¹⁶ It paused, but its likeness I could not recognize;
    a figure was before my eyes,
    in silence I heard a voice:^(D)
17 “Can anyone be more in the right than God?^(E)
    Can mortals be more blameless than their Maker?
¹⁸ Look, he puts no trust in his servants,^(F)
    and even with his messengers he finds fault.
¹⁹ How much more with those who dwell in houses of clay,
    whose foundation is in the dust,
    who are crushed more easily than a moth!
²⁰ Morning or evening they may be shattered;
    unnoticed, they perish forever.
²¹ The pegs of their tent are plucked up;
    they die without knowing wisdom.”