¹Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered,

• ²“Should a wise man answer with vain knowledge,
• and fill himself with the east wind?

• ³Should he reason with unprofitable talk,
• or with speeches with which he can do no good?

• ⁴Yes, you do away with fear,
• and hinder devotion before God.

• ⁵For your iniquity teaches your mouth,
• and you choose the language of the crafty.

• ⁶Your own mouth condemns you, and not I.
• Yes, your own lips testify against you.

• ⁷“Are you the first man who was born?
• Or were you brought forth before the hills?

• ⁸Have you heard the secret counsel of God?
• Do you limit wisdom to yourself?

• ⁹What do you know, that we don’t know?
• What do you understand, which is not in us?

• ¹⁰With us are both the gray-headed and the very aged men,
• much elder than your father.

• ¹¹Are the consolations of God too small for you,
• even the word that is gentle toward you?

• ¹²Why does your heart carry you away?
• Why do your eyes flash,

• ¹³That you turn your spirit against God,
• and let such words go out of your mouth?

• ¹⁴What is man, that he should be clean?
• What is he who is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?

• ¹⁵Behold, he puts no trust in his holy ones.
• Yes, the heavens are not clean in his sight;

• ¹⁶how much less one who is abominable and corrupt,
• a man who drinks iniquity like water!

• ¹⁷“I will show you, listen to me;
• that which I have seen I will declare:

• ¹⁸(Which wise men have told by their fathers,
• and have not hidden it;

• ¹⁹to whom alone the land was given,
• and no stranger passed among them):

• ²⁰the wicked man writhes in pain all his days,
• even the number of years that are laid up for the oppressor.

• ²¹A sound of terrors is in his ears.
• In prosperity the destroyer shall come on him.

• ²²He doesn’t believe that he shall return out of darkness.
• He is waited for by the sword.

• ²³He wanders abroad for bread, saying, ‘Where is it?’
• He knows that the day of darkness is ready at his hand.

• ²⁴Distress and anguish make him afraid.
• They prevail against him, as a king ready to the battle.

• ²⁵Because he has stretched out his hand against God,
• and behaves himself proudly against the Almighty;

• ²⁶he runs at him with a stiff neck,
• with the thick shields of his bucklers;

• ²⁷because he has covered his face with his fatness,
• and gathered fat on his thighs.

• ²⁸He has lived in desolate cities,
• in houses which no one inhabited,
• which were ready to become heaps.

• ²⁹He shall not be rich, neither shall his substance continue,
• neither shall their possessions be extended on the earth.

• ³⁰He shall not depart out of darkness.
• The flame shall dry up his branches.
• By the breath of God’s mouth shall he go away.

• ³¹Let him not trust in emptiness, deceiving himself;
• for emptiness shall be his reward.

• ³²It shall be accomplished before his time.
• 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 tree.

• ³⁴For the company of the godless shall be barren,
• and fire shall consume the tents of bribery.

• ³⁵They conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity.
• Their heart prepares deceit.”