Job 15

1Then Eliphaz the Thæmanite answered and said,

2Will a wise man give for answer a [mere] breath of wisdom? and does he fill up the pain of his belly,

3reasoning with improper sayings, and with words wherein is no profit?

4Hast not thou moreover cast off fear, and accomplished such words before the Lord?

5Thou art guilty by the words of thy mouth, neither hast thou discerned the words of the mighty.

6Let thine own mouth, and not me, reprove thee: and thy lips shall testify against thee.

7What! art thou the first man that was born? or wert thou established before the hills?

8Or hast thou heard the ordinance of the Lord? or has God used thee as [his] counsellor? and has wisdom come [only] to thee?

9For what knowest thou, that we know not? or what understandest thou, which we do not also?

10Truly among us [are] both the old and very aged man, more advanced in days than thy father.

11Thou hast been scourged for [but] few of thy sins: thou hast spoken haughtily [and] extravagantly.

12What has thine heart dared? or what have thine eyes [aimed at],

13that thou hast vented [thy] rage before the Lord, and delivered such words from [thy] mouth?

14For who, being a mortal, [is such] that he shall be blameless? or, [who that is] born of a woman, that he should be just?

15Forasmuch as he trusts not his saints; and the heaven is not pure before him.

16Alas then, abominable and unclean is man, drinking unrighteousness as a draught.

17But I will tell thee, hearken to me; I will tell thee now what I have seen;

18things wise men say, and their fathers have not hidden.

19To them alone the earth was given, and no stranger came upon them.

20All the life of the ungodly [is spent] in care, and the years granted to the oppressor are numbered.

21And his terror is in his ears: just when he seems to be at peace, his overthrow will come.

22Let him not trust that he shall return from darkness, for he has been already made over to the power of the sword.

23And 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.

24Distress also and anguish shall come upon him: he shall fall as a captain in the first rank.

25For he has lifted his hands against the Lord, and he has hardened his neck against the Almighty Lord.

26And he has run against him with insolence, on the thickness of the back of his shield.

27For he has covered his face with his fat, and made layers of fat upon his thighs.

28And let him lodge in desolate cities, and enter into houses without inhabitant: and what they have prepared, others shall carry away.

29Neither shall he at all grow rich, nor shall his substance remain: he shall not cast a shadow upon the earth.

30Neither shall he in any wise escape the darkness: let the wind blast his blossom, and let his flower fall off.

31Let him not think that he shall endure; for his end shall be vanity.

32His harvest shall perish before the time, and his branch shall not flourish.

33And let him be gathered as the unripe grape before the time, and let him fall as the blossom of the olive.

34For death is the witness of an ungodly man, and fire shall burn the houses of them that receive gifts.

35And he shall conceive sorrows, and his end shall be vanity, and his belly shall bear deceit.