Job 15:1-24 ▼

1 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said:

2 “Does a wise one answer with knowledge of wind, and fill his belly with the east wind?

3 Should he reason with a word that does not benefit, and with words without profit in them?

4 Indeed, you break apart fear, and diminish meditation before the face of God.

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

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

7 Were you born as the first man? And were you formed before the face of the hills?

8 Do you listen in the council of God, and reduce to yourself wisdom?

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

10 Even the gray-haired and the aged are with us—greater than your father in days.

11 Are the consolations of God too small for you, or a word in gentleness to you?

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

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

14 What is man that he should be pure, or that he should be righteous, one born of woman?

15 Behold, He does not trust in His holy ones, and the heavens are not pure in His eyes;

16 also surely the abominable and corrupt one is a man drinking iniquity like water!

17 I will tell you! Listen to me, and this that I have seen I will recount—

18 what the wise have brought forward and have not concealed from their fathers,

19 to whom alone the land was given, and a stranger did not pass over in their midst.

20 All the days of the wicked, he is writhing, and the number of years is hidden for the ruthless.

21 The voice of dread is in his ears; in prosperity, the destroyer comes upon him.

22 He is not sure to return from darkness, and he is watched over unto the sword.

23 He is is wandering for bread for vultures, knowing that a day of darkness is ready at his hand.

24 Distress and anguish terrify him; they prevail against him like a king ready for the attack.