Job 15

²“Should a wise man answer with vain knowledge,

and fill himself with the east wind?

³Should he reason with unprofitable talk,

or with speeches with which he can do no good?

⁴Yes, you do away with fear,

and hinder devotion before God.

⁵For your iniquity teaches your mouth,

and you choose the language of the crafty.

⁶Your own mouth condemns you, and not I.

Yes, your own lips testify against you.

⁷“Are you the first man who was born?

Or were you brought out before the hills?

⁸Have you heard the secret counsel of God?

Do you limit wisdom to yourself?

⁹What do you know that we don’t know?

What do you understand which is not in us?

¹⁰With us are both the grey-headed and the very aged men,

much older than your father.

¹¹Are the consolations of God too small for you,

even the word that is gentle towards you?

¹²Why does your heart carry you away?

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 should be clean?

What is he who is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?

¹⁵Behold, he puts no trust in his holy ones.

Yes, 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, listen to me;

that which I have seen I will declare

¹⁸(which wise men have told by their fathers,

and have not hidden it;

¹⁹to whom alone the land was given,

and no stranger passed amongst them):

²⁰the wicked man writhes in pain all his days,

even the number of years that are laid up for the oppressor.

²¹A sound of terrors is in his ears.

In prosperity the destroyer will come on him.

²²He doesn’t believe that he will return out of darkness.

He is waited for by the sword.

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

He knows that the day of darkness is ready at his hand.

²⁴Distress and anguish make him afraid.

They prevail against him, as a king ready to the battle.

²⁵Because he has stretched out his hand against God,

and behaves himself proudly against the Almighty,

²⁶he runs at him with a stiff neck,

with the thick shields of his bucklers,

²⁷because he has covered his face with his fatness,

and gathered fat on his thighs.

²⁸He has lived in desolate cities,

in houses which no one inhabited,

which were ready to become heaps.

²⁹He will not be rich, neither will his substance continue,

neither will their possessions be extended on the earth.

³⁰He will not depart out of darkness.

The flame will dry up his branches.

He will go away by the breath of God’s mouth.

³¹Let him not trust in emptiness, deceiving himself,

for emptiness will be his reward.

³²It will be accomplished before his time.

His branch will not be green.

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

and will cast off his flower as the olive tree.

³⁴For the company of the godless will be barren,

and fire will consume the tents of bribery.

³⁵They conceive mischief and produce iniquity.

Their heart prepares deceit.”