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Job / Eliphaz Reproves Job and Defends Retribution
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Eliphaz Reproves Job and Defends Retribution

Job 15:1-35

15
Chapter 15
1 Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said: 2 Does a wise man answer with the knowledge of the wind and fill his belly with the east wind? 3 to rebuke with a word that they will not heed and words that will not avail with them 4 Indeed, you frustrate fear and diminish cultic pit-digging before the face of God. 5 For your iniquity instructs your mouth, and you choose the tongue of the prudent. 6 Your mouth will condemn you, and not I; your lips will testify against you. 7 You were born the first Adam, and you were before hills. 8 Have you listened in the council of God, and do you withhold wisdom to yourself? 9 What do you know that we do not know? Will you discern, or is it not with us? 10 Also, the grayhead is among us, aged and mighty more than your father's days. 11 Are the comforts from you too few, God, and a word that is gentle too little? 12 What seizes your heart, and why do your eyes wink? 13 for you return to God your spirit, and you bring words out from your mouth 14 What is man that he should be pure, and he who is born of a woman that he should be righteous? 15 Behold, he puts no trust in his holy ones, and the heavens are not pure in his eyes. 16 Indeed, it is detestable and defiled for a man who drinks a burnt offering like water. 17 Bear with me a little, hear me, and I will tell you what I have seen. 18 which skilled artisans divinely endowed will declare and not hide from their fathers 19 To them alone the land was given, and no foreigner passed among them. 20 All the days of the wicked he writhes and counts years stored up for the Tyrant. 21 A sound of terrors is in his ears; in peace a robber will come upon him. 22 He will not believe that he will return from darkness, and he is watched for by the sword. 23 He wanders for manna—where does he know? The day of darkness is prepared in God's hand. 24 Terror will terrify him; affliction and distress will assault him like a king ready for armed conflict. 25 for he stretches out his hand against God and acts presumptuously against Shaddai. 26 He runs against him with his neck, with the thick boss of his shields. 27 For he has covered his face with his fat, and he has made fatness on his loins. 28 And he dwells in cities that are destroyed, houses that no one dwells in, which have become heaps. 29 He will not grow rich, nor will his power endure, nor will he stretch out their produce to the land. 30 He will not turn away from darkness; his branch will dry up; a flame will wither it, and he will depart by the breath of his mouth. 31 Let him not trust in his emptiness—he will be led astray, for emptiness will be his exchange. 32 Without his Day it will be filled, and his branch will not flourish. 33 He does violence to his vine branch, and he casts off like an olive its firstfruit. 34 For the assembly of the godless hypocrite is barren, and fire has eaten the tents of bribery. 35 They conceive toil and give birth to iniquity, and their belly prepares deceit.