✧1Then answered Eliphaz the Temanite, and said, ✧2Should a wise man make answer with vain knowledge, And fill himself with the east wind? ✧3Should he reason with unprofitable talk, Or with speeches wherewith he can do no good? ✧4Yea, thou doest away with fear, And hinderest devotion before God. ✧5For thine iniquity teacheth thy mouth, And thou choosest the tongue of the crafty. ✧6Thine own mouth condemneth thee, and not I; Yea, thine own lips testify against thee. ✧7Art thou the first man that was born? Or wast thou brought forth before the hills? ✧8Hast thou heard the secret counsel of God? And dost thou limit wisdom to thyself? ✧9What knowest thou, that we know not? What understandest thou, which is not in us?
American Standard Version (ASV). American Standard Version (1901). Public domain.
✧10With us are both the gray-headed and the very aged men, Much elder than thy father.
✧11Are the consolations of God too small for thee, Even the word that is gentle toward thee?
✧12Why doth thy heart carry thee away? And why do thine eyes flash,
✧13That against God thou turnest thy spirit, And lettest words go out of thy mouth?
✧14What is man, that he should be clean? And he that is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?
✧15Behold, he putteth no trust in his holy ones; Yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight:
✧16How much less one that is abominable and corrupt, A man that drinketh iniquity like water!
✧17I will show thee, hear thou me; And that which I have seen I will declare
✧18(Which wise men have told From their fathers, and have not hid it;
✧19Unto whom alone the land was given, And no stranger passed among them):
✧20The wicked man travaileth with 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 upon him.
✧22He believeth not that he shall return out of darkness, And he is waited for of the sword.
✧23He wandereth abroad for bread, [saying], Where is it? He knoweth 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 hath stretched out his hand against God, And behaveth himself proudly against the Almighty;
✧26He runneth upon him with a [stiff] neck, With the thick bosses of his bucklers;
✧27Because he hath covered his face with his fatness, And gathered fat upon his loins;
✧28And he hath dwelt in desolate cities, In houses which no man 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, And by the breath of [God’s] mouth shall he go away.
✧31Let him not trust in vanity, deceiving himself; For vanity shall be his recompense.
✧32It shall be accomplished before his time, And 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, And their heart prepareth deceit.