Job 15

And Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said, 2 “Will the wise answer {with} knowledge of wind and fill his belly {with} the east wind, 3 reasoning with a word {that} does not benefit and {with} words {that} do not have profit in them? \* 4 Indeed, you destroy fear, and you diminish devotion to the face of God, 5 for your iniquity teaches your mouth, and you choose the tongue of the crafty. 6 Your mouth condemns you, and not I, and your lips testify against you. \* 7 Were you born the first man, and to the face of the hills were you formed? 8 Do you hear the counsel of God? Do you limit wisdom to yourself? 9 What do you know, and we do not know? {What} do you understand, and it {is} not with us? \* 10 Both 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 turn your spirit against God and bring out words from your mouth? 14 What {is} man, that he should be pure, or that one born of a woman should be righteous? \* 15 Behold, he does not trust in his holy ones, and the heavens are not clean in his eyes; 16 indeed that the abominable and the corrupted, a man drinking iniquity like water! \* 17 I will show you; listen to me, and what I have seen, let me also recount, 18 what the wise have declared— and not hidden—from their fathers. \* 19 To them alone the land was given, and no stranger passed in their midst. 20 All of the days of the wicked, he is writhing, and the number of years, they are reserved for the oppressor. 21 The sound of terrors {is} in his ears; in prosperity the destroyer comes upon him. \* 22 He does not believe to return from darkness, and he is selected for the sword. 23 He {is} wandering for bread—‘Where {is it}?’ He knows that the day of darkness {is} prepared at hand. 24 Distress and anguish terrify him; it overpowers him like a king ready for battle, \* 25 because he has stretched out his hand against God and against the Almighty he has vaunted himself. 26 He rushes against him with the neck, with the thickness of the bosses of his shields, \* 27 though he has covered his face with his fat and made blubber on the flanks. 28 And he lives {in} ruined cities, {in} houses that no one dwells in, which are ready {to be} heaps. \* 29 He will not be rich, and his wealth will not stand, and their possessions will not spread over the land. 30 He will not depart from darkness; a flame will dry up his shoots, and he will depart at the breath of his mouth. \* 31 Let him not trust in emptiness, deceiving himself; for emptiness will be his recompense. 32 When {it is} not his day, it will be fulfilled, and his branch will not be green. 33 He will shake off his unripe grapes like a grapevine, and he will cast off his blossoms like an olive tree. \* 34 For the company of the godless {is} barren, and fire devours the tents of bribery. 35 They conceive trouble and bear iniquity, and their womb fashions deceit.” \*