4. For the spirit of God made me,the breath of the Almighty keeps me alive.
5. If you are able, refute me;draw up your arguments and take your stand.
6. Look, I am like you before God,I too was pinched from clay.
7. Therefore fear of me should not dismay you,nor should I weigh heavily upon you.
8. But you have said in my hearing,as I listened to the sound of your words:
9. “I am clean, without transgression;I am innocent, there is no guilt in me.
10. Yet he invents pretexts against meand counts me as an enemy.
11. He puts my feet in the stocks,watches all my paths!”
12. In this you are not just, let me tell you;for God is greater than mortals.
13. Why, then, do you make complaint against himthat he gives no reply to their words?
14. For God does speak, once,even twice, though you do not see it:
15. In a dream, in a vision of the night,when deep sleep falls upon mortalsas they slumber in their beds.
16. It is then he opens their earsand with a warning, terrifies them,
17. By turning mortals from actingand keeping pride away from a man,
18. He holds his soul from the pit,his life from passing to the grave.
19. Or he is chastened on a bed of pain,suffering continually in his bones,
20. So that to his appetite food is repulsive,his throat rejects the choicest nourishment.