✧“Call now; is there any who will answer you? To which of the holy ones will you turn? ✧2For resentment kills the foolish man, and jealousy kills the simple. ✧3I have seen the foolish taking root, but suddenly I cursed his habitation. ✧4His children are far from safety. They are crushed in the gate. Neither is there any to deliver them, ✧5whose harvest the hungry eat up, and take it even out of the thorns. The snare gapes for their substance. ✧6For affliction doesn’t come out of the dust, neither does trouble spring out of the ground; ✧7but man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward. ✧8“But as for me, I would seek God. I would commit my cause to God, ✧9who does great things that can’t be fathomed, marvelous things without number; ✧10who gives rain on the earth, and sends waters on the fields; ✧11so that he sets up on high those who are low, those who mourn are exalted to safety. ✧12He frustrates the plans of the crafty, so that their hands can’t perform their enterprise. ✧13He takes the wise in their own craftiness; the counsel of the cunning is carried headlong. ✧14They meet with darkness in the day time, and grope at noonday as in the night. ✧15But he saves from the sword of their mouth, even the needy from the hand of the mighty. ✧16So the poor has hope, and injustice shuts her mouth. ✧17“Behold, happy is the man whom God corrects. Therefore do not despise the chastening of the Almighty. ✧18For he wounds and binds up. He injures and his hands make whole. ✧19He will deliver you in six troubles; yes, in seven no evil will touch you. ✧20In famine he will redeem you from death; in war, from the power of the sword. ✧21You will be hidden from the scourge of the tongue, neither will you be afraid of destruction when it comes. ✧22You will laugh at destruction and famine, neither will you be afraid of the animals of the earth. ✧23For you will be allied with the stones of the field. The animals of the field will be at peace with you. ✧24You will know that your tent is in peace. You will visit your fold, and will miss nothing. ✧25You will know also that your offspring will be great, your offspring as the grass of the earth. ✧26You will come to your grave in a full age, like a shock of grain comes in its season. ✧27Behold, we have researched it. It is so. Hear it, and know it for your good.”