Round Two: Eliphaz's Speech:
Job, you tear down reverence for God
151Eliphaz the Temanite responded:
2Does a wise man answer with windy bluster?
Does he fill his belly with the hot east wind?
3Does he support his arguments with useless talk,
with words that provide no benefit?
4But you even tear down reverence.
You hinder thoughtful reflection in the presence of God.
5Your guilt instructs your mouth.
You choose deceptive language.
6Your own mouth condemns you, not mine.
Your own lips testify against you.
7Were you the first man to be born?
Were you brought forth before the hills?
8Do you listen in on the council meetings of God?
Do you lay claim to all wisdom for yourself?
9What do you know that we do not know as well?
What do you understand that we do not?
10The gray-haired and the aged are on our side,
men older than your father.
11Are the consolations of God too small for you?
Do you think nothing of the gentle words spoken to you?
12Why does your heart carry you away?
Why do your eyes flash with such anger?
13Why do you turn your spirit against God?
Why do you allow such words to pour out of your mouth?
14What is man, that he could be pure,
or one born of woman, that he could be declared righteous?
15If God does not trust in his holy ones,
and even the heavens are not pure in his eyes,
16how much less man who is repulsive and corrupt,
who drinks down injustice like water!
17Let me instruct you! Listen to me!
This is what I have seen. Let me tell you about it.
18This is what wise men have declared,
wise men who hid nothing of what they had received from their fathers,
19to whom alone the land was given,
at a time when no foreigners were present in their midst.
20Through all his days, a wicked man writhes in pain,
throughout the whole number of years stored up for a tyrant.
21Terrifying sounds echo in his ears.
In peacetime the plunderer arrives.
22The wicked man does not believe that he will return from darkness.
He is sentenced to the sword.
23He wanders around looking for food and asks, “Where is it?”[] He knows that a day of darkness is at hand.
30He will not escape from darkness.
Flames will dry up his shoots.
With a breath from God's mouth, he will depart.
31He should not trust in useless things.
He should not fool himself.
His only reward will be useless things.
32Before his time, he will be paid in full.
His palm branches will not be green.
33His grapes will be shaken from the vine before they are ripe.
He will be like an olive tree that loses its blossoms.
34In the end, the community of the godless produces nothing,
and fire consumes the tents of those who take bribes.
35They conceive trouble and give birth to disaster.
Their womb produces treachery.
