Job 15

15 ¹Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered: ²"Should a wise man answer with windy knowledge and fill his belly with the east wind? ^a a v2 The east wind was the scorching desert sirocco — a recurring symbol of emptiness and destruction throughout Job. ³Should he argue with useless talk, with words that do no good? ⁴But you are doing away with the fear of God and hindering meditation before God. ⁵For your sin instructs your mouth, and you choose the tongue of the crafty. ⁶Your own mouth condemns you, not I; your own lips testify against you. ⁷Are you the first man ever born? Were you brought forth before the hills? ⁸Have you listened in the council of God? Do you limit wisdom to yourself? ^b b v8 The "council of God" is the heavenly assembly where God presides with his celestial beings — Eliphaz is mocking Job's pretension to insider knowledge. ⁹What do you know that we do not? What do you understand that is not in us as well? ¹⁰The gray-haired and the aged are among us, men older than your father. ¹¹Are the comforts of God too small for you, the word spoken gently to you? ¹²Why does your heart carry you away, and why do your eyes flash, ¹³that you turn your spirit against God and let such words pour from your mouth? ¹⁴What is man, that he should be pure? What is one born of woman, that he should be righteous? ¹⁵Look, God puts no trust in his holy ones, and the heavens are not pure in his sight; ¹⁶how much less one who is detestable and corrupt, a man who drinks injustice like water! ¹⁷I will show you; listen to me; I will tell you what I have seen, ¹⁸what wise men have declared, not hiding what they received from their fathers, ¹⁹to whom alone the land was given, when no foreigner had yet come among them. ²⁰The wicked man writhes in pain all his days, through all the years in store for the ruthless. ²¹Terrifying sounds fill his ears; in his prosperity the destroyer comes upon him. ²²He does not believe he will escape the darkness; he is marked for the sword. ²³He wanders about for bread, asking, 'Where is it?' He knows a day of darkness is close at hand. ²⁴Distress and anguish terrify him; they overpower him like a king poised for battle, ²⁵because he stretched out his hand against God and defied the Almighty, ²⁶charging at him stubbornly with a thick, reinforced shield; ²⁷because he covered his face with fat and piled flesh around his waist, ²⁸he settled in ruined cities, in houses no one should live in, ready to become heaps of rubble. ²⁹He will not grow rich; his wealth will not endure, nor will his possessions spread over the land. ³⁰He will not escape from darkness; a flame will wither his shoots, and the breath of God's mouth will sweep him away. ³¹Let him not trust in emptiness, deceiving himself, for emptiness will be his reward. ³²His reward will be paid in full before his time, and his branch will not be green. ³³He will shake off his unripe grapes like a vine and drop his blossoms like an olive tree. ³⁴For the company of the godless is barren, and fire consumes the homes of bribery. ³⁵They conceive trouble and give birth to evil; their womb prepares deceit."