Job 15

¹Then Eliʹphaz the Teʹmanite answered:

²“Should a wise man answer with windy knowledge,

and fill himself with the east wind?

³Should he argue in unprofitable talk,

or in words with which he can do no good?

⁴But you are doing away with the fear of God,

and hindering meditation before God.

⁵For your iniquity teaches your mouth,

and you choose the tongue of the crafty.

⁶Your 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?

⁸Have you listened in the council of God?

And do you limit wisdom to yourself?

⁹What do you know that we do not know?

What do you understand that is not clear to us?

¹⁰Both the gray-haired and the aged are among us,

older than your father.

¹¹Are the consolations of God too small for you,

or the word that deals gently with you?

¹²Why does your heart carry you away,

and why do your eyes flash,

¹³that you turn your spirit against God,

and let such words go out of your mouth?

¹⁴What is man, that he can be clean?

Or he that is born of a woman, that he can be righteous?

¹⁵Behold, God puts no trust in his holy ones,

and the heavens are not clean in his sight;

¹⁶how 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,

¹⁹to whom alone the land was given,

and no stranger passed among them).

²⁰The wicked man writhes in pain all his days,

through all the years that are laid up for the ruthless.

²¹Terrifying sounds are in his ears;

in prosperity the destroyer will come upon him.

²²He does not believe that he will return out of darkness,

and he is destined for the sword.

²³He wanders abroad for bread, saying, ‘Where is it?’

He knows that a day of darkness is ready at his hand;

²⁴distress and anguish terrify him;

they prevail against him, like a king prepared for battle.

²⁵Because he has stretched forth his hand against God,

and bids defiance to the Almighty,

²⁶running stubbornly against him

with a thick-bossed shield;

²⁷because he has covered his face with his fat,

and gathered fat upon his loins,

²⁸and has lived in desolate cities,

in houses which no man should inhabit,

which were destined to become heaps of ruins;

²⁹he will not be rich, and his wealth will not endure,

nor will he strike root in the earth;

³⁰he will not escape from darkness;

the flame will dry up his shoots,

and his blossom will be swept away by the wind.

³¹Let him not trust in emptiness, deceiving himself;

for emptiness will be his recompense.

³²It will be paid in full before his time,

and his branch will not be green.

³³He will shake off his unripe grape, like the vine,

and cast off his blossom, like the olive tree.

³⁴For the company of the godless is barren,

and fire consumes the tents of bribery.

³⁵They conceive mischief and bring forth evil

and their heart prepares deceit.”