6. I am the same as you in God’s sight; I too am a piece of clay.
7. No fear of me should alarm you, nor should my hand be heavy on you.
8. “But you have said in my hearing— I heard the very words—
9. ‘I am pure, I have done no wrong; I am clean and free from sin.
10. Yet God has found fault with me; he considers me his enemy.
11. He fastens my feet in shackles; he keeps close watch on all my paths.’
12. “But I tell you, in this you are not right, for God is greater than any mortal.
13. Why do you complain to him that he responds to no one’s words ?
14. For God does speak—now one way, now another— though no one perceives it.
15. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on people as they slumber in their beds,
16. he may speak in their ears and terrify them with warnings,
17. to turn them from wrongdoing and keep them from pride,
18. to preserve them from the pit, their lives from perishing by the sword.
19. “Or someone may be chastened on a bed of pain with constant distress in their bones,
20. so that their body finds food repulsive and their soul loathes the choicest meal.