Chapter 15

  And Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said,  

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  Should a wise man answer with windy knowledge, and fill his belly with the east wind,  

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  Reasoning with unprofitable talk, and with speeches which do no good?  

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  Yea, thou makest piety of none effect, and restrainest meditation before ùGod.  

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  For thy mouth uttereth thine iniquity, and thou hast chosen the tongue of the crafty.  

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  Thine own mouth condemneth thee, and not I; and thy lips testify against thee.  

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  Art thou the first man that was born? and wast thou brought forth before the hills?  

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  Hast thou listened in the secret council of +God? And hast thou absorbed wisdom for thyself?  

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  What knowest thou that we know not? [what] understandest thou which is not in us?  

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  Both the greyheaded and the aged are with us, older than thy father.  

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  Are the consolations of ùGod too small for thee? and the word gently spoken to thee?  

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  Why doth thy heart carry thee away? and why do thine eyes wink?  

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  That thou turnest thy spirit against ùGod, and lettest words go out of thy mouth?  

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  What is man, that he should be pure? and he that is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?  

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  Behold, he putteth no trust in his holy ones, and the heavens are not pure in his sight:  

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  How much less the abominable and corrupt, -- man, that drinketh unrighteousness like water!  

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  I will shew thee, listen to me; and what I have seen I will declare;  

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  Which wise men have told from their fathers, and have not hidden;  

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  Unto whom alone the earth was given, and no stranger passed among them.  

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  All his days the wicked man is tormented, and numbered years are allotted to the violent.  

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  The sound of terrors is in his ears: in prosperity the destroyer cometh upon him.  

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  He believeth not that he shall return out of darkness, and he is singled out for the sword.  

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  He wandereth abroad for bread, -- where may it be? He knoweth that the day of darkness is ready at his hand.  

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  Distress and anguish make him afraid; they prevail against him, as a king ready for the battle.  

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  For he hath stretched out his hand against ùGod, and strengthened himself against the Almighty:  

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  He runneth against him, with [outstretched] neck, with the thick bosses of his bucklers;  

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  For he hath covered his face with his fatness, and gathered fat upon [his] flanks.  

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  And he dwelleth in desolate cities, in houses that no man inhabiteth, which are destined to become heaps.  

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  He shall not become rich, neither shall his substance continue, and their possessions shall not extend upon the earth.  

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  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.  

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  Let him not trust in vanity: he is deceived, for vanity shall be his recompense;  

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  It shall be complete before his day, and his branch shall not be green.  

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  He shall shake off his unripe grapes as a vine, and shall cast his flower as an olive.  

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  For the family of the ungodly shall be barren, and fire shall consume the tents of bribery.  

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  They conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity, and their belly prepareth deceit.  

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