Job - Chapter 15 - A Conservative Version
- Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered, and said,
- Should a wise man make answer with vain knowledge, and fill himself with the east wind?
- Should he reason with unprofitable talk, or with speeches with which he can do no good?
- Yea, thou do away with fear, and hinder devotion before God.
- For thine iniquity teaches thy mouth. And thou choose the tongue of the crafty.
- Thine own mouth condemns thee, and not I. Yes, thine own lips testify against thee.
- Are thou the first man who was born? Or were thou brought forth before the hills?
- Have thou heard the secret counsel of God? And do thou limit wisdom to thyself?
- What do thou know, that we do not know? What do thou understand, which is not in us?
- With us are both the gray-headed and the very aged men, much older than thy father.
- Are the consolations of God too small for thee, even the word that is gentle toward thee?
- Why does thy heart carry thee away? And why do thine eyes flash,
- that against God thou turn thy spirit, and let words go out of thy mouth?
- What is man, that he should be clean? And he who is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?
- Behold, he puts no trust in his holy ones. Yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight:
- How much less one who is abominable and corrupt, a man who drinks iniquity like water!
- I will show thee. Hear thou me, and that which I have seen I will declare,
- which wise men have told from their fathers, and have not hid it,
- to whom alone the land was given, and no stranger passed among them:
- The wicked man travails with pain all his days, even the number of years that are laid up for the oppressor.
- A sound of terrors is in his ears. In prosperity the destroyer shall come upon him.
- He does not believe that he shall return out of darkness. And he is awaited by the sword.
- He wanders abroad for bread, [saying], Where is it? He knows that the day of darkness is ready at his hand.
- Distress and anguish make him afraid. They prevail against him as a king ready to the battle.
- Because he has stretched out his hand against God, and behaves himself proudly against the Almighty.
- He runs upon him with a [stiff] neck, with the thick studs of his bucklers,
- because he has covered his face with his fatness, and gathered fat upon his loins.
- And he has dwelt in desolate cities, in houses which no man inhabited, which were ready to become heaps.
- He shall not be rich, neither shall his substance continue, neither shall their possessions be extended on the earth.
- He shall not depart out of darkness. The flame shall dry up his branches, and by the breath of [God's] mouth he shall go away.
- Let him not trust in vanity, deceiving himself. For vanity shall be his recompense.
- It shall be accomplished before his time, and his branch shall not be green.
- He shall shake off his unripe grape as the vine, and shall cast off his flower as the olive tree.
- For the company of the hypocrites shall be barren, and fire shall consume the tents of bribery.
- They conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity, and their heart prepares deceit.