¹² Lo, ye -- all of you -- have seen, And why `is' this -- ye are altogether vain?

²⁵ How powerful have been upright sayings, And what doth reproof from you reprove?

²⁶ For reproof -- do you reckon words? And for wind -- sayings of the desperate.

²⁷ Anger on the fatherless ye cause to fall, And are strange to your friend.

²⁸ And, now, please, look upon me, Even to your face do I lie?

²⁹ Turn back, I pray you, let it not be perverseness, Yea, turn back again -- my righteousness `is' in it.

¹⁴ There is a vanity that hath been done upon the earth, that there are righteous ones unto whom it is coming according to the work of the wicked, and there are wicked ones unto whom it is coming according to the work of the righteous. I have said that this also `is' vanity.

² What -- thou hast helped the powerless, Saved an arm not strong!

³ What -- thou hast given counsel to the unwise, And wise plans in abundance made known.

⁴ With whom hast thou declared words? And whose breath came forth from thee?

²⁸ For ye say, `Where `is' the house of the noble? And where the tent -- The tabernacles of the wicked?'

²⁹ Have ye not asked those passing by the way? And their signs do ye not know?

³⁰ That to a day of calamity is the wicked spared. To a day of wrath they are brought.

³ Bear with me, and I speak, And after my speaking -- ye may deride.

² Till when do ye afflict my soul, And bruise me with words?

³ These ten times ye put me to shame, ye blush not. Ye make yourselves strange to me --

² If not -- mockeries `are' with me. And in their provocations mine eye lodgeth.

³ Is there an end to words of wind? Or what doth embolden thee that thou answerest?

⁴ And yet, ye `are' forgers of falsehood, Physicians of nought -- all of you,

⁵ O that ye would keep perfectly silent, And it would be to you for wisdom.

⁶ Hear, I pray you, my argument, And to the pleadings of my lips attend,

⁷ For God do ye speak perverseness? And for Him do ye speak deceit?

⁸ His face do ye accept, if for God ye strive?

⁹ Is `it' good that He doth search you, If, as one mocketh at a man, ye mock at Him?

¹ But all this I have laid unto my heart, so as to clear up the whole of this, that the righteous and the wise, and their works, `are' in the hand of God, neither love nor hatred doth man know, the whole `is' before them.

² The whole `is' as to the whole; one event is to the righteous and to the wicked, to the good, and to the clean, and to the unclean, and to him who is sacrificing, and to him who is not sacrificing; as `is' the good, so `is' the sinner, he who is swearing as he who is fearing an oath.

³ This `is' an evil among all that hath been done under the sun, that one event `is' to all, and also the heart of the sons of man is full of evil, and madness `is' in their heart during their life, and after it -- unto the dead.