Job 15

¹ And Eliphaz the Temanite made answer and said,

² Will a wise man make answer with knowledge of no value, or will he give birth to the east wind?

³ Will he make arguments with words in which is no profit, and with sayings which have no value?

⁴ Truly, you make the fear of God without effect, so that the time of quiet worship before God is made less by your outcry.

⁵ For your mouth is guided by your sin, and you have taken the tongue of the false for yourself.

⁶ It is by your mouth, even yours, that you are judged to be in the wrong, and not by me; and your lips give witness against you.

⁷ Were you the first man to come into the world? or did you come into being before the hills?

⁸ Were you present at the secret meeting of God? and have you taken all wisdom for yourself?

⁹ What knowledge have you which we have not? is there anything in your mind which is not in ours?

¹⁰ With us are men who are grey-haired and full of years, much older than your father.

¹¹ Are the comforts of God not enough for you, and the gentle word which was said to you?

¹² Why is your heart uncontrolled, and why are your eyes lifted up;

¹³ So that you are turning your spirit against God, and letting such words go out of your mouth?

¹⁴ What is man, that he may be clean? and how may the son of woman be upright?

¹⁵ Truly, he puts no faith in his holy ones, and the heavens are not clean in his eyes;

¹⁶ How much less one who is disgusting and unclean, a man who takes in evil like water!

¹⁷ Take note and give ear to my words; and I will say what I have seen:

¹⁸ (The things which wise men have got from their fathers, and have not kept secret from us;

¹⁹ For only to them was the land given, and no strange people were among them:)

²⁰ The evil man is in pain all his days, and the number of the years stored up for the cruel is small.

²¹ A sound of fear is in his ears; in time of peace destruction will come on him:

²² He has no hope of coming safe out of the dark, and his fate will be the sword;

²³ He is wandering about in search of bread, saying, Where is it? and he is certain that the day of trouble is ready for him:

²⁴ He is greatly in fear of the dark day, trouble and pain overcome him:

²⁵ Because his hand is stretched out against God, and his heart is lifted up against the Ruler of all,

²⁶ Running against him like a man of war, covered by his thick breastplate; even like a king ready for the fight,

²⁷ Because his face is covered with fat, and his body has become thick;

²⁸ And he has made his resting-place in the towns which have been pulled down, in houses where no man had a right to be, whose fate was to become masses of broken walls.

²⁹ He does not get wealth for himself, and is unable to keep what he has got; the heads of his grain are not bent down to the earth.

³⁰ He does not come out of the dark; his branches are burned by the flame, and the wind takes away his bud.

³¹ Let him not put his hope in what is false, falling into error: for he will get deceit as his reward.

³² His branch is cut off before its time, and his leaf is no longer green.

³³ He is like a vine whose grapes do not come to full growth, or an olive-tree dropping its flowers.

³⁴ For the band of the evil-doers gives no fruit, and the tents of those who give wrong decisions for reward are burned with fire.

³⁵ Evil has made them with child, and they give birth to trouble; and the fruit of their body is shame for themselves.