Job 15

¹Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said :

²Should a wise man answer with windy knowledge , and fill his belly 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.

⁷Are you the first man who 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 comforts 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 bring such words out of your mouth ?

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

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

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

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

¹⁸(what wise men have told , without hiding it from their fathers ,

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 .

²¹Dreadful 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 marked 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 ready for battle .

²⁵Because he has stretched out his hand against God and defies the Almighty ,

²⁶running stubbornly against him with a thickly bossed shield ;

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

²⁸and has lived in desolate cities , in houses that none should inhabit , which were ready to become heaps of ruins;

²⁹he will not be rich , and his wealth will not endure , nor will his possessions spread over the earth ;

³⁰he will not depart from darkness ; the flame will dry up his shoots , and by the breath of his mouth he will depart .

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

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 trouble and give birth to evil , and their womb prepares deceit .