Job 15

¹ Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said:

² Does a wise man answer with windy knowledge
and fill himself with the east wind?

³ Should he argue with useless talk
or with words that do no good?

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

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

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

⁷ Are you the first man ever born?
Were you brought forth before the hills?

⁸ Have you listened in the council of God?
Do you have a monopoly on wisdom?

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

¹⁰ There are among us men gray-haired and aged,
older by far 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 pure?
Or he who 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 pure in his sight;

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

¹⁷ I will show you — hear me —
and what I have seen I will tell,

¹⁸ what the wise have told,
without concealing it from their fathers,

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 stored up for the ruthless.

²¹ Terrifying sounds fill his ears;
in prosperity the destroyer comes upon him.

²² He does not believe he will return from darkness,
and he is marked out for the sword.

²³ He wanders about for bread — where is it?
He knows that a day of darkness is at hand.

²⁴ Distress and anguish terrify him;
they overwhelm him, like a king ready to attack.

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

²⁶ running against him neck outstretched,
with the thick bosses of his shield —

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

²⁸ he lives in desolate cities,
in houses that no one inhabits,
destined to become heaps of rubble.

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

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

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

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