Job 22

¹ Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said:

² Can a man be profitable to God? Though to himself a wise man be profitable!

³ Is it of advantage to the Almighty if you are just? Or is it a gain to him if you make your ways perfect?

⁴ Is it because of your piety that he reproves you-- that he enters with you into judgment?

⁵ Is not your wickedness manifold? Are not your iniquities endless?

⁶ You have unjustly kept your kinsmen's goods in pawn, left them stripped naked of their clothing.

⁷ To the thirsty you have given no water to drink, and from the hungry you have withheld bread;

⁸ As if the land belonged to the man of might, and only the privileged were to dwell in it.

⁹ You have sent widows away empty-handed, and the resources of orphans you have destroyed.

¹⁰ Therefore snares are round about you, and a sudden terror causes you dismay,

¹¹ Or darkness, in which you cannot see; a deluge of waters covers you.

¹² Does not God, in the heights of the heavens, behold the stars, high though they are?

¹³ Yet you say, "What does God know? Can he judge through the thick darkness?

¹⁴ Clouds hide him so that he cannot see; he walks upon the vault of the heavens!"

¹⁵ Do you indeed keep to the ancient way trodden by worthless men,

¹⁶ Who were snatched away before their time; whose foundations a flood swept away?

¹⁷ These men said to God, "Depart from us!" and, "What can the Almighty do to us?"

¹⁸ (Yet he had filled their houses with good things! But far be from me the mind of the impious!)

¹⁹ The just look on and are gladdened, and the innocent deride them:

²⁰ "Truly these have been destroyed where they stood, and such as were left, fire has consumed!"

²¹ Come to terms with him to be at peace. In this shall good come to you:

²² Receive instruction from his mouth, and lay up his words in your heart.

²³ If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored; if you put iniquity far from your tent,

²⁴ And treat raw gold like dust, and the fine gold of Ophir as pebbles from the brook,

²⁵ Then the Almighty himself shall be your gold and your sparkling silver.

²⁶ For then you shall delight in the Almighty and you shall lift up your face toward God.

²⁷ You shall entreat him and he will hear you, and your vows you shall fulfill.

²⁸ When you make a decision, it shall succeed for you, and upon your ways the light shall shine.

²⁹ For he brings down the pride of the haughty, but the man of humble mien he saves.

³⁰ God delivers him who is innocent; you shall be delivered through cleanness of hands.