| 1 | Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered: | |
| 2 | “Should the wise answer with windy knowledge, and fill themselves with the east wind? | |
| 3 | Should they argue in unprofitable talk, or in words with which they can do no good? | |
| 4 | But you are doing away with the fear of God, and hindering meditation before God. | |
| 5 | For your iniquity teaches your mouth, and you choose the tongue of the crafty. | |
| 6 | Your own mouth condemns you, and not I; your own lips testify against you. | |
| 7 | “Are you the firstborn of the human race? Were you brought forth before the hills? | |
| 8 | Have you listened in the council of God? And do you limit wisdom to yourself? | |
| 9 | What do you know that we do not know? What do you understand that is not clear to us? | |
| 10 | The gray-haired and the aged are on our side, those older than your father. | |
| 11 | Are the consolations of God too small for you, or the word that deals gently with you? | |
| 12 | Why does your heart carry you away, and why do your eyes flash, | |
| 13 | so that you turn your spirit against God, and let such words go out of your mouth? | |
| 14 | What are mortals, that they can be clean? Or those born of woman, that they can be righteous? | |
| 15 | God puts no trust even in his holy ones, and the heavens are not clean in his sight; | |
| 16 | how much less one who is abominable and corrupt, one who drinks iniquity like water! | |
| 17 | “I will show you; listen to me; what I have seen I will declare — | |
| 18 | what sages have told, and their ancestors have not hidden, | |
| 19 | to whom alone the land was given, and no stranger passed among them. | |
| 20 | The wicked writhe in pain all their days, through all the years that are laid up for the ruthless. | |
| 21 | Terrifying sounds are in their ears; in prosperity the destroyer will come upon them. | |
| 22 | They despair of returning from darkness, and they are destined for the sword. | |
| 23 | They wander abroad for bread, saying, ‘Where is it?’ They know that a day of darkness is ready at hand; | |
| 24 | distress and anguish terrify them; they prevail against them, like a king prepared for battle. | |
| 25 | Because they stretched out their hands against God, and bid defiance to the Almighty, | |
| 26 | running stubbornly against him with a thick-bossed shield; | |
| 27 | because they have covered their faces with their fat, and gathered fat upon their loins, | |
| 28 | they will live in desolate cities, in houses that no one should inhabit, houses destined to become heaps of ruins; | |
| 29 | they will not be rich, and their wealth will not endure, nor will they strike root in the earth; | |
| 30 | they will not escape from darkness; the flame will dry up their shoots, and their blossom will be swept away by the wind. | |
| 31 | Let them not trust in emptiness, deceiving themselves; for emptiness will be their recompense. | |
| 32 | It will be paid in full before their time, and their branch will not be green. | |
| 33 | They will shake off their unripe grape, like the vine, and cast off their blossoms, like the olive tree. | |
| 34 | For the company of the godless is barren, and fire consumes the tents of bribery. | |
| 35 | They conceive mischief and bring forth evil and their heart prepares deceit.” |