Job 15

¹ Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered:

² "Should a wise man answer with windy knowledge, and fill himself with the east wind?

³ Should he argue in unprofitable talk, or in words with which he can do no good?

⁴ But you are doing away with the fear of God, and hindering meditation before God.

⁵ For your iniquity teaches your mouth, and you choose the tongue of the crafty.

⁶ Your own mouth condemns you, and not I; your own lips testify against you.

⁷ "Are you the first man that was born? Or were you brought forth before the hills?

⁸ Have you listened in the council of God? And do you limit wisdom to yourself?

⁹ What do you know that we do not know? What do you understand that is not clear to us?

¹⁰ Both the gray-haired and the aged are among us, older than your father.

¹¹ Are the consolations of God too small for you, or the word that deals gently with you?

¹² Why does your heart carry you away, and why do your eyes flash,

¹³ that you turn your spirit against God, and let such words go out of your mouth?

¹⁴ What is man, that he can be clean? Or he that is born of a woman, that he can be righteous?

¹⁵ Behold, God puts no trust in his holy ones, and the heavens are not clean in his sight;

¹⁶ how much less one who is abominable and corrupt, a man who drinks iniquity like water!

¹⁷ "I will show you, hear me; and what I have seen I will declare

¹⁸ (what wise men have told, and their fathers have not hidden,

¹⁹ to whom alone the land was given, and no stranger passed among them).

²⁰ The wicked man writhes in pain all his days, through all the years that are laid up for the ruthless.

²¹ Terrifying sounds are in his ears; in prosperity the destroyer will come upon him.

²² He does not believe that he will return out of darkness, and he is destined for the sword.

²³ He wanders abroad for bread, saying, 'Where is it?' He knows that a day of darkness is ready at his hand;

²⁴ distress and anguish terrify him; they prevail against him, like a king prepared for battle.

²⁵ Because he has stretched forth his hand against God, and bids defiance to the Almighty,

²⁶ running stubbornly against him with a thick-bossed shield;

²⁷ because he has covered his face with his fat, and gathered fat upon his loins,

²⁸ and has lived in desolate cities, in houses which no man should inhabit, which were destined to become heaps of ruins;

²⁹ he will not be rich, and his wealth will not endure, nor will he strike root in the earth;

³⁰ he will not escape from darkness; the flame will dry up his shoots, and his blossom will be swept away by the wind.

³¹ Let him not trust in emptiness, deceiving himself; for emptiness will be his recompense.

³² It will be paid in full before his time, and his branch will not be green.

³³ He will shake off his unripe grape, like the vine, and cast off his blossom, like the olive tree.

³⁴ For the company of the godless is barren, and fire consumes the tents of bribery.

³⁵ They conceive mischief and bring forth evil and their heart prepares deceit."