The In-Dept Study of the Bible
Job 15
1 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered,
2 “Should a wise man answer with vain
knowledge, and fill himself with the east wind?
3 Should he reason with unprofitable talk,
or with speeches with which he can do
no good?
4 Yes, you do away with fear,
and hinder devotion before God.
5 For your iniquity teaches your mouth,
and you choose the language of the
crafty.
6 Your own mouth condemns you, and not
I. Yes, your own lips testify against you.
7 “Are you the first man who was born?
Or were you brought out before the
hills?
8 Have you heard the secret counsel of
God? Do you limit wisdom to yourself?
9 What do you know that we don’t know?
What do you understand which is not
in us?
10 With us are both the gray-headed and
the very aged men, much older than your father.
11 Are the consolations of God too small for
you, even the word that is gentle toward
you?
12 Why does your heart carry you away?
Why do your eyes flash,
13 that you turn your spirit against God,
and let such words go out of your
mouth?
14 What is man, that he should be clean?
What is he who is born of a woman,
that he should be righteous?
15 Behold, he puts no trust in his holy ones.
Yes, the heavens are not clean in his
sight;
16 how much less one who is abominable
and corrupt, a man who drinks iniquity like water!
17 “I will show you, listen to me;
that which I have seen I will declare
18 (which wise men have told by their fathers,
and have not hidden it;
19 to whom alone the land was given,
and no stranger passed among them):
20 the wicked man writhes in pain all his
days, even the number of years that are laid
up for the oppressor.
21 A sound of terrors is in his ears.
In prosperity the destroyer will come
on him.
22 He doesn’t believe that he will return out
of darkness. He is waited for by the sword.
23 He wanders abroad for bread, saying,
‘Where is it?’ He knows that the day of darkness is
ready at his hand.
24 Distress and anguish make him afraid.
They prevail against him, as a king
ready to the battle.
25 Because he has stretched out his hand
against God, and behaves himself proudly against
the Almighty,
26 he runs at him with a stiff neck,
with the thick shields of his bucklers,
27 because he has covered his face with his
fatness, and gathered fat on his thighs.
28 He has lived in desolate cities,
in houses which no one inhabited,
which were ready to become heaps.
29 He will not be rich, neither will his substance continue,
neither will their possessions be extended on the earth.
30 He will not depart out of darkness.
The flame will dry up his branches.
He will go away by the breath of God’s
mouth.
31 Let him nottrustin emptiness, deceiving
himself, for emptiness will be his reward.
32 It will be accomplished before his time.
His branch will not be green.
33 He will shake off his unripe grape as the
vine, and will cast off his flower as the olive
tree.
34 For the company of the godless will be
barren, and fire will consume the tents of
bribery.
35 They conceive mischief and produce iniquity.
Their heart prepares deceit.”