6. The dwellings of robbers prosper; those who provoke God are [apparently] secure; God supplies them abundantly [who have no god but their own hands and power].
7. For ask now the animals, and they will teach you [that God does not deal with His creatures according to their character]; ask the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
8. Or speak to the earth [with its other forms of life], and it will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare [this truth] to you.
9. Who [is so blind as] not to recognize in all these [that good and evil are promiscuously scattered throughout nature and human life] that it is God's hand which does it [and God's way]?
10. In His hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.
11. Is it not the task of the ear to discriminate between [wise and unwise] words, just as the mouth distinguishes [between desirable and undesirable] food?
12. With the aged [you say] is wisdom, and with length of days comes understanding.
13. But [only] with [God] are [perfect] wisdom and might; He [alone] has [true] counsel and understanding.
14. Behold, He tears down, and it cannot be built again; He shuts a man in, and none can open.
15. He withholds the waters, and the land dries up; again, He sends forth [rains], and they overwhelm the land or transform it.
16. With Him are might and wisdom; the deceived and the deceiver are His [and in His power].
17. He leads [great and scheming] counselors away stripped and barefoot and makes the judges fools [in human estimation, by overthrowing their plans].
18. He looses the fetters [ordered] by kings and has [the] waistcloth [of a slave] bound about their [own] loins.
19. He leads away priests as spoil, and men firmly seated He overturns.