Job 15

¹ Then answered Eliphaz the Temanite, and said,

² Should a wise man make answer with vain knowledge, and fill his belly with the east wind?

³ Should he reason with unprofitable talk, or with speeches wherewith he can do no good?

⁴ Yea, thou doest away with fear, and restrainest devotion before God.

⁵ For thine iniquity teacheth thy mouth, and thou choosest the tongue of the crafty.

⁶ Thine own mouth condemneth thee, and not I; yea, thine own lips testify against thee.

⁷ Art thou the first man that was born? or wast thou brought forth before the hills?

⁸ Hast thou heard the secret counsel of God? and dost thou restrain wisdom to thyself?

⁹ What knowest thou, that we know not? what understandest thou, which is not in us?

¹⁰ With us are both the grayheaded and the very aged men, much elder than thy father.

¹¹ Are the consolations of God too small for thee, and the word that dealeth gently with thee?

¹² Why doth thine heart carry thee away? and why do thine eyes wink?

¹³ That thou turnest thy spirit against God, and lettest such words go out of thy mouth.

¹⁴ What is man, that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?

¹⁵ Behold, he putteth no trust in his holy ones; yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight.

¹⁶ How much less one that is abominable and corrupt, a man that drinketh iniquity like water!

¹⁷ I will shew thee, hear thou me; and that which I have seen I will declare:

¹⁸ (Which wise men have told from their fathers, and have not hid it;

¹⁹ Unto whom alone the land was given, and no stranger passed among them:)

²⁰ The wicked man travaileth with pain all his days, even the number of years that are laid up for the oppressor.

²¹ A sound of terrors is in his ears; in prosperity the spoiler shall come upon him:

²² He believeth not that he shall return out of darkness, and he is waited for of the sword:

²³ He wandereth abroad for bread, saying, Where is it? he knoweth that the day of darkness is ready at his hand:

²⁴ Distress and anguish make him afraid; they prevail against him, as a king ready to the battle:

²⁵ Because he hath stretched out his hand against God, and behaveth himself proudly against the Almighty;

²⁶ He runneth upon him with a stiff neck, with the thick bosses of his bucklers:

²⁷ Because he hath covered his face with his fatness, and made collops of fat on his flanks;

²⁸ And he hath dwelt in desolate cities, in houses which no man inhabited, which were ready to become heaps.

²⁹ He shall not be rich, neither shall his substance continue, neither shall their produce bend to the earth.

³⁰ He shall not depart out of darkness; the flame shall dry up his branches, and by the breath of his mouth shall he go away.

³¹ Let him not trust in vanity, deceiving himself: for vanity shall be his recompence.

³² It shall be accomplished before his time, and his branch shall not be green.

³³ He shall shake off his unripe grape as the vine, and shall cast off his flower as the olive.

³⁴ For the company of the godless shall be barren, and fire shall consume the tents of bribery.

³⁵ They conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity, and their belly prepareth deceit.