How (not) to be a miserable comforter

² “If someone ventures a word with you, will you be impatient?
But who can keep from speaking?
³ Think how you have instructed many,
how you have strengthened feeble hands.
⁴ Your words have supported those who stumbled;
you have strengthened faltering knees.
⁵ But now trouble comes to you, and you are discouraged;
it strikes you, and you are dismayed.
⁶ Should not your piety be your confidence
and your blameless ways your hope?

⁷ “Consider now: Who, being innocent, has ever perished?
Where were the upright ever destroyed?
⁸ As I have observed, those who plow evil
and those who sow trouble reap it.
⁹ At the breath of God they perish;
at the blast of his anger they are no more.
¹⁰ The lions may roar and growl,
yet the teeth of the great lions are broken.
¹¹ The lion perishes for lack of prey,
and the cubs of the lioness are scattered.

¹² “A word was secretly brought to me,
my ears caught a whisper of it.
¹³ Amid disquieting dreams in the night,
when deep sleep falls on people,
¹⁴ fear and trembling seized me
and made all my bones shake.
¹⁵ A spirit glided past my face,
and the hair on my body stood on end.
¹⁶ It stopped,
but I could not tell what it was.
A form stood before my eyes,
and I heard a hushed voice:
¹⁷ ‘Can a mortal be more righteous than God?
Can even a strong man be more pure than his Maker?
¹⁸ If God places no trust in his servants,
if he charges his angels with error,
¹⁹ how much more those who live in houses of clay,
whose foundations are in the dust,
who are crushed more readily than a moth!
²⁰ Between dawn and dusk they are broken to pieces;
unnoticed, they perish forever.
²¹ Are not the cords of their tent pulled up,
so that they die without wisdom?’

5 “Call if you will, but who will answer you?
To which of the holy ones will you turn?
² Resentment kills a fool,
and envy slays the simple.
³ I myself have seen a fool taking root,
but suddenly his house was cursed.
⁴ His children are far from safety,
crushed in court without a defender.
⁵ The hungry consume his harvest,
taking it even from among thorns,
and the thirsty pant after his wealth.
⁶ For hardship does not spring from the soil,
nor does trouble sprout from the ground.
⁷ Yet man is born to trouble
as surely as sparks fly upward.

⁸ “But if I were you, I would appeal to God;
I would lay my cause before him.
⁹ He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed,
miracles that cannot be counted.
¹⁰ He provides rain for the earth;
he sends water on the countryside.
¹¹ The lowly he sets on high,
and those who mourn are lifted to safety.
¹² He thwarts the plans of the crafty,
so that their hands achieve no success.
¹³ He catches the wise in their craftiness,
and the schemes of the wily are swept away.
¹⁴ Darkness comes upon them in the daytime;
at noon they grope as in the night.
¹⁵ He saves the needy from the sword in their mouth;
he saves them from the clutches of the powerful.
¹⁶ So the poor have hope,
and injustice shuts its mouth.

¹⁷ “Blessed is the one whom God corrects;
so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty.
¹⁸ For he wounds, but he also binds up;
he injures, but his hands also heal.
¹⁹ From six calamities he will rescue you;
in seven no harm will touch you.
²⁰ In famine he will deliver you from death,
and in battle from the stroke of the sword.
²¹ You will be protected from the lash of the tongue,
and need not fear when destruction comes.
²² You will laugh at destruction and famine,
and need not fear the wild animals.
²³ For you will have a covenant with the stones of the field,
and the wild animals will be at peace with you.
²⁴ You will know that your tent is secure;
you will take stock of your property and find nothing missing.
²⁵ You will know that your children will be many,
and your descendants like the grass of the earth.
²⁶ You will come to the grave in full vigor,
like sheaves gathered in season.

²⁷ “We have examined this, and it is true.
So hear it and apply it to yourself.”