Bildad the Shuhite answers with impatience. How long will you speak these things? Shall the words of your mouth be a mighty wind? His central question is right in itself: Does God pervert justice? Or does the Almighty pervert righteousness? But Bildad draws a harsh conclusion. If your children have sinned against him, he has delivered them into the hand of their disobedience. The reader knows from chapter 1 that Job's children died in a test Job knew nothing about.
Bildad's counsel follows the same formula as Eliphaz. If you want to seek God diligently, make your supplication to the Almighty. If you were pure and upright, surely now he would awaken for you. Though your beginning was small, yet your latter end would greatly increase. Ironically, Job's latter end will increase, but not because Bildad's diagnosis was right.
Bildad points Job to the wisdom of past generations. Can the papyrus grow up without mire? Can the rushes grow without water? Such plants wither quickly, and so does the hope of the godless, which is like a spider's web. He concludes, Behold, God will not cast away a blameless man, neither will he uphold the evildoers. Bildad's words contain truth, but his use of them is wrong, and in Job 42:7 God says the friends have not spoken of Him the thing that is right.