How then can a human being be righteous before God? How can one born of a woman be pure?

Why has your heart carried you away, and why do your eyes flash,

Why did the knees welcome me, and why were there two breasts that I might nurse at them?

“Teach me and I, for my part, will be silent; explain to me how I have been mistaken.

How painful are honest words! But what does your reproof prove?

They were saying to God, ‘Turn away from us,’ and ‘What can the Almighty do to us?’

“I made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I entertain thoughts against a virgin?

What then would be one’s lot from God above, one’s heritage from the Almighty on high?

What is my strength, that I should wait? and what is my end, that I should prolong my life?

“Truly, I know that this is so. But how can a human be just before God?

Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him? What would we gain if we were to pray to him?’

then what will I do when God confronts me in judgment; when he intervenes, how will I respond to him?

Is it your opinion that God should recompense it, because you reject this? But you must choose, and not I, so tell us what you know.

And why do you not pardon my transgression, and take away my iniquity? For now I will lie down in the dust, and you will seek me diligently, but I will be gone.”

Indeed, these are but the outer fringes of his ways! How faint is the whisper we hear of him! But who can understand the thunder of his power?”