Eliphaz’s Second Speech Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered:

“Does a wise man answer with blustery knowledge, or fill his belly with the east wind?

Does he argue with useless talk, with words that have no value in them?

But you even break off piety, and hinder meditation before God.

Your sin inspires your mouth; you choose the language of the crafty.

Your own mouth condemns you, not I; your own lips testify against you.

“Were you the first man ever born? Were you brought forth before the hills?

Do you listen in on God’s secret council? Do you limit wisdom to yourself?

What do you know that we don’t know? What do you understand that we don’t understand?

The gray-haired and the aged are on our side, men far older than your father.

Are God’s consolations too trivial for you; or a word spoken in gentleness to you?

Why has your heart carried you away, and why do your eyes flash,

when you turn your rage against God and allow such words to escape from your mouth?

What is man that he should be pure, or one born of woman, that he should be righteous?

If God places no trust in his holy ones, if even the heavens are not pure in his eyes,

how much less man, who is abominable and corrupt, who drinks in evil like water!

“I will explain to you; listen to me, and what I have seen, I will declare,

what wise men declare, hiding nothing, from the tradition of their ancestors,

to whom alone the land was given when no foreigner passed among them.

All his days the wicked man suffers torment, throughout the number of the years that are stored up for the tyrant.

Terrifying sounds fill his ears; in a time of peace marauders attack him.

He does not expect to escape from darkness; he is marked for the sword;

he wanders about– food for vultures; he knows that the day of darkness is at hand.

Distress and anguish terrify him; they prevail against him like a king ready to launch an attack,

for he stretches out his hand against God, and vaunts himself against the Almighty,

defiantly charging against him with a thick, strong shield!

Because he covered his face with fat, and made his hips bulge with fat,

he lived in ruined towns and in houses where no one lives, where they are ready to crumble into heaps.

He will not grow rich, and his wealth will not endure, nor will his possessions spread over the land.

He will not escape the darkness; a flame will wither his shoots and he will depart by the breath of God’s mouth.

Let him not trust in what is worthless, deceiving himself; for worthlessness will be his reward.

Before his time he will be paid in full, and his branches will not flourish.

Like a vine he will let his sour grapes fall, and like an olive tree he will shed his blossoms.

For the company of the godless is barren, and fire consumes the tents of those who accept bribes.

They conceive trouble and bring forth evil; their belly prepares deception.”