15
1 Then Eliphaz the Thæmanite answered and said,
2 Will a wise man give for answer a mere breath of wisdom? and does he fill up the pain of his belly, 3 reasoning with improper sayings, and with words wherein is no profit? 4 Hast not thou moreover cast off fear, and accomplished such words before the Lord? 5 Thou art guilty by the words of thy mouth, neither hast thou discerned the words of the mighty. 6 Let thine own mouth, and not me, reprove thee: and thy lips shall testify against thee.
7 What! art thou the first man that was born? or wert thou established before the hills? 8 Or hast thou heard the ordinance of the Lord? or has God used thee as his counsellor? and has wisdom come only to thee? 9 For what knowest thou, that we know not? or what understandest thou, which we do not also? 10 Truly among us are both the old and very aged man, more advanced in days than thy father. 11 Thou hast been scourged for but few of thy sins: thou hast spoken haughtily and extravagantly.
12 What has thine heart dared? or what have thine eyes aimed at, 13 that thou hast vented thy rage before the Lord, and delivered such words from thy mouth? 14 For who, being a mortal, is such that he shall be blameless? or, who that is born of a woman, that he should be just? 15 Forasmuch as he trusts not his saints; and the heaven is not pure before him. 16 Alas then, abominable and unclean is man, drinking unrighteousness as a draught.
17 But I will tell thee, hearken to me; I will tell thee now what I have seen; 18 things wise men say, and their fathers have not hidden. 19 To them alone the earth was given, and no stranger came upon them. 20 All the life of the ungodly is spent in care, and the years granted to the oppressor are numbered. 21 And his terror is in his ears: just when he seems to be at peace, his overthrow will come. 22 Let him not trust that he shall return from darkness, for he has been already made over to the power of the sword. 23 And he has been appointed to be food for vultures; and he knows within himself that he is doomed to be a carcase: and a dark day shall carry him away as with a whirlwind. 24 Distress also and anguish shall come upon him: he shall fall as a captain in the first rank. 25 For he has lifted his hands against the Lord, and he has hardened his neck against the Almighty Lord. 26 And he has run against him with insolence, on the thickness of the back of his shield. 27 For he has covered his face with his fat, and made layers of fat upon his thighs. 28 And let him lodge in desolate cities, and enter into houses without inhabitant: and what they have prepared, others shall carry away.
29 Neither shall he at all grow rich, nor shall his substance remain: he shall not cast a shadow upon the earth. 30 Neither shall he in any wise escape the darkness: let the wind blast his blossom, and let his flower fall off. 31 Let him not think that he shall endure; for his end shall be vanity. 32 His harvest shall perish before the time, and his branch shall not flourish. 33 And let him be gathered as the unripe grape before the time, and let him fall as the blossom of the olive. 34 For death is the witness of an ungodly man, and fire shall burn the houses of them that receive gifts. 35 And he shall conceive sorrows, and his end shall be vanity, and his belly shall bear deceit.