For I would have committed a shameful act, an iniquity to be judged.

“It is all one! That is why I say, ‘He destroys the blameless and the guilty.’

So I waste away like something rotten, like a garment eaten by moths.

Can anyone teach God knowledge, since he judges those that are on high?

And when he is carried to the tombs, and watch is kept over the funeral mound,

Small and great are there, and the slave is free from his master.

For he wounds, but he also bandages; he strikes, but his hands also heal.

He is a well-watered plant in the sun, its shoots spread over its garden.

Indeed, this is the joy of his way, and out of the earth others spring up.

Who will contend with me? If anyone can, I will be silent and die.

What do you know that we don’t know? What do you understand that we don’t understand?

Make then my pledge with you. Who else will put up security for me?

But it was he who filled their houses with good things – yet the counsel of the wicked was far from me.

But he is unchangeable, and who can change him? Whatever he has desired, he does.

God understands the way to it, and he alone knows its place.

Does he not see my ways and count all my steps?

then this also would be iniquity to be judged, for I would have been false to God above.

But it is a spirit in people, the breath of the Almighty, that makes them understand.

And its young ones devour the blood, and where the dead carcasses are, there it is.”

It ranks first among the works of God, the One who made it has furnished it with a sword.