5:1 “Call now! Is there anyone who will answer you? To which of the holy ones will you turn?
5:2 For wrath kills the foolish person, and anger slays the silly one.
5:3 I myself have seen the fool taking root, but suddenly I cursed his place of residence.
5:4 His children are far from safety, and they are crushed at the place of judgment, nor is there anyone to deliver them.
5:5 The hungry eat up his harvest, and take it even out of the thorns, and the thirsty swallow up their fortune.
5:6 For evil does not come up from the dust, nor does trouble spring up from the ground,
5:7 but people are born to trouble, as surely as the sparks fly upward.
5:8 “But as for me, I would seek God, and to God I would set forth my case.
5:9 He does great and unsearchable things, marvelous things without number;
5:10 he gives rain on the earth, and sends water upon the fields;
5:11 he sets the lowly on high, that those who mourn are raised to safety.
5:12 He frustrates the plans of the crafty so that their hands do not accomplish what they had planned!
5:13 He catches the wise in their own craftiness, and the counsel of the cunning is brought to a quick end.
5:14 They meet with darkness in the daytime, and grope about in the noontime as if it were night.
5:15 So he saves from the sword that comes from their mouth, even the poor from the hand of the powerful.
5:16 Thus the poor have hope, and iniquity shuts its mouth.
5:17 “Therefore, blessed is the man whom God corrects, so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty.
5:18 For he wounds, but he also bandages; he strikes, but his hands also heal.