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

Your beginning will seem so small, since your future will flourish.

Are God’s consolations too trivial for you; or a word spoken in gentleness to you?

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?”

“Indeed, I am completely unworthy – how could I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth to silence myself.

He draws up drops of water; they distill the rain into its mist,

Are not my days few? Cease, then, and leave me alone, that I may find a little comfort,

as water wears away stones, and torrents wash away the soil, so you destroy man’s hope.

All his days the wicked man suffers torment, throughout the number of the years that are stored up for the tyrant.

For to the snow he says, ‘Fall to earth,’ and to the torrential rains, ‘Pour down.’