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