[1] 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 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 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;
[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.”