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