22:2 “Can a human be of advantage to God? Can even the wisest benefit him?
22:3 Does Shaddai gain if you are righteous? Does he profit if you make your ways blameless?
22:4 “Is he rebuking you because you fear him? Is this why he enters into judgment with you?
22:5 Isn’t it because your wickedness is great? Aren’t your iniquities endless?
22:6 “For you kept your kinsmen’s goods as collateral for no reason, you stripped the poorly clothed of what clothing they have,
22:7 you didn’t give water to the weary to drink, you withheld food from the hungry.
22:8 As a wealthy man, an owner of land, and as a man of rank, who lives on it,
22:9 you sent widows away empty-handed and left the arms of orphans crushed.
22:10 “No wonder there are snares all around you, and sudden terror overwhelms you,
22:11 or darkness , so that you can’t see, and a flood of water that covers you up!
22:12 “Isn’t God in the heights of heaven, looking [down even] on the highest stars?
22:13 Yet you say, ‘What does God know? Can he see through thick darkness to judge?
22:14 The clouds veil him off, so that he can’t see; he just wanders around in heaven.’
22:15 “Are you going to keep to the old way, the one the wicked have trodden,
22:16 the ones snatched away before their time, whose foundations a flood swept away?
22:17 They said to God, ‘Leave us alone! What can Shaddai do to us?’
22:18 Yet he himself had filled their homes with good things! (But the advice of the wicked is far away from me.)
22:19 The righteous saw this and rejoiced; the innocent laughed them to scorn —
22:20 ‘Indeed, our substance has not been not cut off, but the fire has consumed their wealth.’
22:21 “Learn to be at peace with [God]; in this way good will come [back] to you.
22:22 Please! Receive instruction from his mouth, and take his words to heart.
22:23 If you return to Shaddai, you will be built up. If you drive wickedness far from your tents,
22:24 if you lay your treasure down in the dust and the gold of Ofir among the rocks in the vadis,
22:25 and let Shaddai be your treasure and your sparkling silver;
22:26 then Shaddai will be your delight, you will lift up your face to God;
22:27 you will entreat him, and he will hear you, and you will pay what you vowed;
22:28 what you decide to do will succeed, and light will shine on your path;
22:29 when someone is brought down, you will say, ‘It was pride, because [God] saves the humble.’
22:30 “He delivers even the unclean; so if your hands are clean, you will be delivered.”
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