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Eliphaz Accuses: Job Does Not Fear God

 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said:

² “Should a wise man answer with windy knowledge,
and fill his belly with the east wind?
³ Should he argue in unprofitable talk,
or in words with which he can do no good?
⁴ But you are doing away with the fear of God^[a]
and hindering meditation before God.
⁵ For your iniquity teaches your mouth,
and you choose the tongue of the crafty.
⁶ Your own mouth condemns you, and not I;
your own lips testify against you.

⁷ “Are you the first man who was born?
Or were you brought forth before the hills?
⁸ Have you listened in the council of God?
And do you limit wisdom to yourself?
⁹ What do you know that we do not know?
What do you understand that is not clear to us?
¹⁰ Both the gray-haired and the aged are among us,
older than your father.
¹¹ Are the comforts of God too small for you,
or the word that deals gently with you?
¹² Why does your heart carry you away,
and why do your eyes flash,
¹³ that you turn your spirit against God
and bring such words out of your mouth?
¹⁴ What is man, that he can be pure?
Or he who is born of a woman, that he can be righteous?
¹⁵ Behold, God^[b] puts no trust in his holy ones,
and the heavens are not pure in his sight;
¹⁶ how much less one who is abominable and corrupt,
a man who drinks injustice like water!

¹⁷ “I will show you; hear me,
and what I have seen I will declare
¹⁸ (what wise men have told,
without hiding it from their fathers,
¹⁹ to whom alone the land was given,
and no stranger passed among them).
²⁰ The wicked man writhes in pain all his days,
through all the years that are laid up for the ruthless.
²¹ Dreadful sounds are in his ears;
in prosperity the destroyer will come upon him.
²² He does not believe that he will return out of darkness,
and he is marked for the sword.
²³ He wanders abroad for bread, saying, ‘Where is it?’
He knows that a day of darkness is ready at his hand;
²⁴ distress and anguish terrify him;
they prevail against him, like a king ready for battle.
²⁵ Because he has stretched out his hand against God
and defies the Almighty,
²⁶ running stubbornly against him
with a thickly bossed shield;
²⁷ because he has covered his face with his fat
and gathered fat upon his waist
²⁸ and has lived in desolate cities,
in houses that none should inhabit,
which were ready to become heaps of ruins;
²⁹ he will not be rich, and his wealth will not endure,
nor will his possessions spread over the earth;^[c]
30 he will not depart from darkness;
the flame will dry up his shoots,
and by the breath of his mouth he will depart.
³¹ Let him not trust in emptiness, deceiving himself,
for emptiness will be his payment.
³² It will be paid in full before his time,
and his branch will not be green.
³³ He will shake off his unripe grape like the vine,
and cast off his blossom like the olive tree.
³⁴ For the company of the godless is barren,
and fire consumes the tents of bribery.
³⁵ They conceive trouble and give birth to evil,
and their womb prepares deceit.”

Footnotes:

1. Job 15:4 Hebrew lacks of God
2. Job 15:15 Hebrew he
3. Job 15:29 Or nor will his produce bend down to the earth

Cross references:

1. Job 15:1 : ch. 2:11
2. Job 15:2 : [ch. 12:3]
3. Job 15:2 : ch. 16:3
4. Job 15:2 : ver. 35
5. Job 15:2 : ch. 6:26; 8:2; Hos. 12:1
6. Job 15:6 : ch. 9:20; Luke 19:22
7. Job 15:6 : 2 Sam. 1:16
8. Job 15:7 : [ch. 38:21]
9. Job 15:7 : Prov. 8:25
10. Job 15:7 : Ps. 90:2
11. Job 15:8 : ch. 29:4; Jer. 23:18; [Gen. 1:26; 3:22]
12. Job 15:9 : ch. 12:3; 13:2
13. Job 15:10 : [ch. 12:12; 32:6, 7]
14. Job 15:13 : [ch. 21:4]
15. Job 15:14 : For ver. 14-16, see ch. 25:4-6
16. Job 15:14 : [ch. 14:4; Ps. 14:3; Prov. 20:9; Eccles. 7:20; 1 John 1:8, 10]
17. Job 15:14 : See ch. 14:1
18. Job 15:15 : ch. 4:18
19. Job 15:15 : See ch. 5:1
20. Job 15:16 : ch. 9:14
21. Job 15:16 : [Ps. 14:3; 53:1]
22. Job 15:16 : ch. 34:7; [Prov. 19:28; 26:6]
23. Job 15:18 : [ch. 8:8]; See Ps. 44:1
24. Job 15:19 : Joel 3:17
25. Job 15:20 : [ch. 21:19; 24:1]
26. Job 15:20 : ch. 6:23; 27:13
27. Job 15:21 : See ch. 18:11
28. Job 15:21 : [1 Thess. 5:3]
29. Job 15:23 : Ps. 59:15; 109:10
30. Job 15:24 : ch. 14:20
31. Job 15:26 : [ch. 16:14; Dan. 8:6]
32. Job 15:26 : Ps. 75:5
33. Job 15:27 : See Ps. 17:10
34. Job 15:30 : ch. 4:9
35. Job 15:31 : [Isa. 59:4]
36. Job 15:32 : ch. 22:16; Eccles. 7:17; [Ps. 55:23; 102:24]
37. Job 15:34 : ch. 16:7
38. Job 15:34 : [ch. 20:26]
39. Job 15:35 : Ps. 7:14; Isa. 59:4; [Hos. 10:13]
40. Job 15:35 : See ver. 2