Job 15

¹Then answered Eliphaz the Temanite, and said:
²Should a wise man make answer with windy knowledge, and fill his belly with the east wind?
³Should he reason with unprofitable talk, or with speeches wherewith he can do no good?
⁴Yea, thou doest away with fear, and impairest devotion before God.
⁵For thine iniquity teacheth thy mouth, and thou choosest the tongue of the crafty.
⁶Thine own mouth condemneth thee, and not I; yea, thine own lips testify against thee.
⁷Art thou the first man that was born? Or wast thou brought forth before the hills?
⁸Dost thou hearken in the council of God? And dost thou restrain wisdom to thyself?
⁹What knowest thou, that we know not? What understandest thou, which is not in us?
¹⁰With us are both the gray-headed and the very aged men, much older than thy father.
¹¹Are the consolations of God too small for thee, and the word that dealeth gently with thee?
¹²Why doth thy heart carry thee away? And why do thine eyes wink?
¹³That thou turnest thy spirit against God, and lettest such words go out of thy mouth.
¹⁴What is man, that he should be clean? And he that is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?
¹⁵Behold, He putteth no trust in His holy ones; yea, the heavens are not clean in His sight.
¹⁶How much less one that is abominable and impure, man who drinketh iniquity like water!
¹⁷I will tell thee, hear thou me; and that which I have seen I will declare--
¹⁸Which wise men have told from their fathers, and have not hid it;
¹⁹Unto whom alone the land was given, and no stranger passed among them.
²⁰The wicked man travaileth with 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 shall come upon him.
²²He believeth not that he shall return out of darkness, and he is waited for of the sword.
²³He wandereth abroad for bread: 'Where is it?' He knoweth that the day of darkness is ready at his hand.
²⁴Distress and anguish overwhelm him; they prevail against him, as a king ready to the battle.
²⁵Because he hath stretched out his hand against God, and behaveth himself proudly against the Almighty;
²⁶He runneth upon him with a stiff neck, with the thick bosses of his bucklers.
²⁷Because he hath covered his face with his fatness, and made collops of fat on his loins;
²⁸And he hath dwelt in desolate cities, in houses which no man would inhabit, which were ready to become heaps.
²⁹He shall not be rich, neither shall his substance continue, neither shall their produce bend to the earth.
³⁰He shall not depart out of darkness; the flame shall dry up his branches, and by the breath of His mouth shall he go away.
³¹Let him not trust in vanity, deceiving himself; for vanity shall be his recompense.
³²It shall be accomplished before his time, and his branch shall not be leafy.
³³He shall shake off his unripe grape as the vine, and shall cast off his flower as the olive.
³⁴For the company of the godless shall be desolate, and fire shall consume the tents of bribery.
³⁵They conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity, and their belly prepareth deceit.

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