1 | Then Eli'phaz the Te'manite answered: |
2 | "Should a wise man answer with windy knowledge, and fill himself with the east wind? |
3 | Should he argue in unprofitable talk, or in words with which he 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 first man that was born? Or 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 | Both the gray-haired and the aged are among us, 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 | that you turn your spirit against God, and let such words go out of your mouth? |
14 | What is man, that he can be clean? Or he that is born of a woman, that he can be righteous? |
15 | Behold, God puts no trust in his holy ones, and the heavens are not clean in his sight; |
16 | how much less one who is abominable and corrupt, a man who drinks iniquity like water! |
17 | "I will show you, hear me; and what I have seen I will declare |
18 | (what wise men have told, and their fathers have not hidden, |
19 | to whom alone the land was given, and no stranger passed among them). |
20 | The wicked man writhes in pain all his days, through all the years that are laid up for the ruthless. |
21 | Terrifying sounds are in his ears; in prosperity the destroyer will come upon him. |
22 | He does not believe that he will return out of darkness, and he is destined for the sword. |
23 | He wanders abroad for bread, saying, `Where is it?' He knows that a day of darkness is ready at his hand; |
24 | distress and anguish terrify him; they prevail against him, like a king prepared for battle. |
25 | Because he has stretched forth his hand against God, and bids defiance to the Almighty, |
26 | running stubbornly against him with a thick-bossed shield; |
27 | because he has covered his face with his fat, and gathered fat upon his loins, |
28 | and has lived in desolate cities, in houses which no man should inhabit, which were destined to become heaps of ruins; |
29 | he will not be rich, and his wealth will not endure, nor will he strike root in the earth; |
30 | he will not escape from darkness; the flame will dry up his shoots, and his blossom will be swept away by the wind. |
31 | Let him not trust in emptiness, deceiving himself; for emptiness will be his recompense. |
32 | It will be paid in full before his time, and his branch will not be green. |
33 | He will shake off his unripe grape, like the vine, and cast off his blossom, 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." |