16. How did Bildad follow up Eliphaz’ assault, and what unfair illustration did he use?

¹⁶ Bildad follows up the verbal assault. “If you are pure and upright,” he says, “by now [God] would awake for you and he would certainly restore your righteous abiding place.” Bildad notes that papyrus and reeds dry up and die without water and truthfully concludes that “all those forgetting God” will also. But how erroneous for him to apply this illustration to Job and to add, “The very hope of an apostate will perish”!​—Job 8:6, 11-13.

Bildad, angered by Job’s steadfast resistance to their arguments, in effect says: ‘Your light will be extinguished. All memory of your existence will die out. That is what happens to those forgetting God.’ (Job 18:5, 12, 13, 17-21)

Bildad finishes the verbal assault. ‘Who on earth can boast that he is clean?’ he asks. ‘God is so glorious that even the moon and the stars are less than nothing to him. How much less is man, who is but a worm in his sight!’​—Job 25:2-6.