Job 15

1Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered: 2Should a wise person answer with windy knowledge and fill his belly with the east wind? 3Should he argue with useless talk, with words that do no good? 4But you are doing away with the fear of God and hindering devotion before him. 5For your guilt instructs your mouth, and you choose the language of the crafty. 6Your own mouth condemns you, not I; your own lips testify against you. 7Were you the first human being ever born? Were you brought forth before the hills? 8Do you listen in on God’s council? Do you keep wisdom all to yourself? 9What do you know that we do not know? What do you understand that we do not? 10Both the gray-haired and the aged are on our side, people older than your father. 11Are God’s comforts too small for you, or a word spoken gently to you? 12Why does your heart carry you away, and why do your eyes flash, 13so that you turn your anger against God and let such words come out of your mouth? 14How can a mortal be pure? How can one born of a woman be righteous? 15If God does not trust even his holy ones, and the heavens are not pure in his sight, 16how much less one who is vile and corrupt, a person who drinks in wrongdoing like water! 17Listen to me, and I will explain; I will tell you what I have seen, 18what the wise have declared and have not hidden, what came from their ancestors, 19to whom alone the land was given, when no foreigner moved among them. 20The wicked person writhes in pain all his days, through all the years laid up for the ruthless. 21Sounds of terror fill his ears; when all is well, a destroyer attacks him. 22He does not expect to escape from darkness; he is marked out for the sword. 23He wanders about for food, saying, ‘Where is it?’ He knows that the day of darkness is close at hand. 24Distress and anguish fill him with terror; they overpower him like a king ready for battle. 25For he has stretched out his hand against God and set himself up against the Almighty; 26he charges at him defiantly, with his thick, studded shield. 27for he has covered his face with fat and piled up fat on his waist, 28and he has lived in ruined cities, in houses no one should live in, houses marked out to become heaps of rubble. 29He will not stay rich, his wealth will not last, and his possessions will not spread across the land. 30He will not escape the darkness; a flame will wither his young shoots, and he will be swept away by the breath of God’s mouth. 31Let him not deceive himself by trusting in what is empty, for emptiness will be his reward. 32It will be paid in full before his time, and his branch will not flourish. 33He will be like a vine that drops its grapes before they ripen, like an olive tree that sheds its blossoms. 34For the household of the godless will be barren, and fire will consume the tents of those who take bribes. 35They conceive trouble and give birth to wickedness; their womb breeds deceit.