- 15Then answered Eliphaz the Temanite, and said, 2Should a wise man utter vain knowledge and fill his belly with the east wind? 3Should he reason with unprofitable talk or with speeches by which he can do no good? 4Yea, you cast off fear and restrain prayer before God. 5For your mouth utters your iniquity, and you choose the tongue of the crafty. 6Your own mouth condemns you and not I. Yea, your own lips testify against you.
- 7Are you the first man that was born? Or were you made before the hills? 8Have you heard the secret of God? And do you restrain wisdom to yourself? 9What do you know that we know not? What do you understand which is not in us? 10With us are both the gray-headed and very aged men, much older than your father. 11Are the consolations of God small with you? Is there any secret thing with you? 12Why does your heart carry you away? And what do your eyes wink at, 13that you turn your spirit against God and let such words go out of your mouth?
- 14What is man, that he should be clean? And he who is born of a woman, that he should be righteous? 15Behold, he puts no trust in his saints; yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight. 16How much more abominable and filthy is man who drinks iniquity like water! 17I will show you; hear me. And that which I have seen, I will declare, 18which wise men have told from their fathers and have not hid it, 19unto whom alone the earth was given and no stranger passed among them.
- 20The wicked man travails with pain all his days, and the number of years is hidden to the oppressor. 21A dreadful sound is in his ears. In prosperity the destroyer shall come upon him. 22He believes not that he shall return out of darkness, and he is waited for of the sword. 23He wanders abroad for bread, saying, Where is it? He knows that the day of darkness is ready at his hand. 24Trouble and anguish shall make him afraid. They shall prevail against him as a king ready to the battle.
- 25For he stretches out his hand against God and strengthens himself against the Almighty. 26He runs upon him, even on his neck, upon the thick bosses of his bucklers, 27because he covers his face with his fatness and makes layers of fat on his flanks. 28And he dwells in desolate cities and in houses which no man inhabits, which are ready to become heaps. 29He shall not be rich, neither shall his substance continue, neither shall he prolong the perfection thereof upon the earth. 30He shall not depart out of darkness. The flame shall dry up his branches, and by the breath of his mouth shall he go away.
- 31Let not him that is deceived trust in vanity, for vanity shall be his recompense. 32It shall be accomplished before his time, and his branch shall not be green. 33He shall shake off his unripe grape as the vine and shall cast off his flower as the olive. 34For the congregation of hypocrites shall be desolate, and fire shall consume the tabernacles of bribery. 35They conceive mischief and bring forth vanity, and their belly prepares deceit.
- 16Then Job answered and said, 2I have heard many such things. Miserable comforters are you all. 3Shall vain words have an end? Or what emboldens you that you answer? 4I also could speak as you do. If your soul were in my soul’s stead, I could heap up words against you and shake my head at you. 5But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips should lessen your grief.
- 6Though I speak, my grief is not lessened. And though I refrain, what am I eased? 7But now he has made me weary. You have made desolate all my company. 8And you have filled me with wrinkles, which is a witness against me. And my leanness rising up in me bears witness to my face. 9He tears me in his wrath who hates me, he gnashes upon me with his teeth. My enemy sharpens his eyes upon me. 10They have gaped upon me with their mouth. They have smitten me upon the cheek reproachfully. They have gathered themselves together against me.
- 11God has delivered me to the ungodly, and turned me over into the hands of the wicked. 12I was at ease, but he has broken me asunder. He has also taken me by my neck and shaken me to pieces, and set me up for his mark. 13His archers encompass me round about, he cleaves my kidneys asunder and does not spare. He pours out my bile upon the ground. 14He breaks me with breach upon breach. He runs upon me like a giant.
- 15I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin and defiled my horn in the dust. 16My face is foul with weeping and on my eyelids is the shadow of death, 17not for any injustice in my hands. Also, my prayer is pure.
- 18O earth, cover not my blood, and let my cry have no place. 19Also, now behold, my witness is in Heaven and my record is on high. 20My friends scorn me, but my eye pours out tears unto God. 21Oh that one might plead for a man with God, as a man pleads for his neighbor.
- 22When a few years have come, then I shall go the way where I shall not return. 17My breath is corrupt. My days are extinct. The graves are ready for me. 2Are there not mockers with me? And does not my eye continue in their provocation?
- 3Lay down now, put me in a surety with you; who is he that will strike hands with me? 4For you have hidden their heart from understanding; therefore shall you not exalt them. 5He that speaks flattery to his friends, even the eyes of his children shall fail.
- 6He has made me also a byword of the people, and previously I was as a tabor. 7My eye also is dim by reason of sorrow, and all my members are as a shadow. 8Upright men shall be astonished at this, and the innocent shall stir up himself against the hypocrite. 9The righteous also shall hold on his way, and he that has clean hands shall be stronger and stronger.
- 10But as for you all, do return and come now, for I cannot find one wise man among you. 11My days are past, my purposes are broken off, even the thoughts of my heart. 12They change the night into day, the light is short because of darkness. 13If I wait, the grave is my house. I have made my bed in the darkness. 14I have said to corruption, You are my father; to the worm, You are my mother and my sister. 15And where is now my hope? As for my hope, who shall see it? 16They shall go down to the bars of the pit when our rest together is in the dust.
Chapter 6