19Would your wealth

or even all your mighty efforts

sustain you so you would not be in distress?

20Do not long for the night,

to drag people away from their homes.^b

21Beware of turning to evil,

which you seem to prefer to affliction.

22“God is exalted in his power.

Who is a teacher like him?

23Who has prescribed his ways for him,

or said to him, ‘You have done wrong’?

24Remember to extol his work,

which men have praised in song.

25All mankind has seen it;

men gaze on it from afar.

26How great is God—beyond our understanding!

The number of his years is past finding out.

27“He draws up the drops of water,

which distill as rain to the streams^c;

28the clouds pour down their moisture

and abundant showers fall on mankind.

29Who can understand how he spreads out the clouds,

how he thunders from his pavilion?

30See how he scatters his lightning about him,

bathing the depths of the sea.

31This is the way he governs^d the nations

and provides food in abundance.

32He fills his hands with lightning

and commands it to strike its mark.

33His thunder announces the coming storm;

even the cattle make known its approach.^e