² “If one of us attempts to reason with you, will you be offended?
    Yet who can refrain from speaking?
³ Recall how you instructed many others
    and strengthened their feeble hands.
⁴ Your words have supported those who were staggering,
    and you have made firm their faltering knees.
⁵ “But now that adversity has befallen you, you have grown impatient;
    you are dismayed because it has troubled you.
⁶ Does not your piety give you confidence
    and the integrity of your life offer you hope?
⁷ Can you recall even one innocent person who perished?
    Where have the upright ever been destroyed?
⁸ “My experience has been that those who plow iniquity and sow trouble
    reap no other harvest.
⁹ At the breath of God they are destroyed;
    at the blast of his anger they perish.
¹⁰ Even though they are as fierce as lions,
    their fangs will be broken off.
¹¹ The lion perishes for lack of prey,
    and the whelps of the lioness are abandoned.

¹² “A word was quietly brought to me;
    a whisper of it reached my ears.
¹³ It was made known to me in nighttime visions
    when sleep comes upon all men.
¹⁴ I was seized with terror and trembling
    that caused all my bones to shake violently.
¹⁵ A spirit brushed across my face,
    causing the hairs on my body to bristle.
¹⁶ It then halted,
    but I could not discern its shape.
An image was before my eyes,
    and then I heard a voice whisper:
¹⁷ “ ‘Can a human being appear upright in the presence of God?
    Can a mortal seem pure before its Maker?
¹⁸ God places no trust in his servants,
    and he finds fault even with his angels.^[d]
19 How much more will this be true of those who dwell in houses of clay,
    whose foundation is in the dust
    and who can be crushed as easily as a moth.
²⁰ From morning to evening they are cut down;
    they perish forever, with hardly a thought from anyone.
²¹ Their tent-pegs are plucked up,
    and they die devoid of wisdom.’