5 

You would appeal? will anyone respond?

what angel would you turn to?

2 

Passion like that is futile, fatal;

’tis death for a fool to flame out against God.

3 

A senseless man may strike root--I have seen it--

but suddenly his branches rot;

4 

his children are left in peril,

defrauded--none to defend them;

5 

hungry men consume their crops,

thirsty men drink up their milk.

6 

[[Suffering? it springs not from the soil,

trouble grows not from the ground;

7 

man brings trouble on himself,

as surely as the sparks fly up.]]

8 

Were I in your place, I would turn to God,

and before God lay my case,

9 

who does great things beyond our ken,

marvels beyond all reckoning;

10 

he pours rain on the ploughland,

and he floods the fields;

11 

he sets the lowly on a height,

and helps the forlorn to victory;

12 

he foils the plots of wily men,

till they win no success;

13 

he snares the cunning with their own guile,

baffling the schemes of shifty men,

14 

till they encounter darkness in the day-time,

groping at noon as if it were the night;

15 

he saves the helpless from the sword,

saves poor souls from the tyrant’s clutch;

16 

and so the hapless have some hope,

and wrongdoers are silenced.

17 

Ah, happy he whom God is chastening!

Spurn not the discipline of the Almighty;

18 

he binds up where he wounds,

he hurts and heals;

19 

in six afflictions he will save you,

no harm shall come to you in seven;

20 

in famine he will rescue you from death,

in war from the stroke of the sword;

21 

you shall be hidden from the scourge of plague,

you need not be afraid of sudden death;

22 

at sudden death and famine you can laugh,

nor need you fear wild beasts;

23 

the very animals shall be your allies,

and the wild beasts your friends;

24 

you may be sure your house is safe,

you shall miss nothing when you count your flock;

25 

you shall find yourself with many children,

offspring in number like the blades of grass;

26 

you shall come to the grave in a ripe age,

like a sheaf borne home in harvest.

27 

This is the truth we have found to be true;

this we have heard: now, lay it to heart.”