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Job 15
15. SECOND SERIES OF SPEECHES
Job’s own words condemn him
1 Eliphaz of Teman spoke next. He said:
2 Does a wise man answer with airy reasonings, or feed himself on an east wind?
3 Does he defend himself with empty talk and ineffectual wordiness?
4 You do worse: you flout piety, you repudiate meditation in God’s presence.
5 A guilty conscience prompts your words, you adopt the language of the cunning.
6 Your own mouth condemns you, and not I; your own lips bear witness against you.
7 Are you the first-born of the human race, brought into the world before the hills?
8 Have you been a listener at God’s council, or established a monopoly of wisdom?
9 What knowledge have you that we have not, what understanding that is not ours too?
10 A grey-haired man, and an ancient, are of our number; these have seen more summers than your father.
11 Do you scorn the comfort that God gives, and the moderation we have used in speaking?
12 See how passion carries you away! How evil you look,
13 when you thus loose your anger on God and utter speeches such as these!
14 How can any man be clean? Born of woman, can he ever be good?
15 In his own Holy Ones God puts no trust, and the heavens themselves are not, in his eyes, clean.
16 Then how much less this hateful, corrupt thing, mankind, that drinks iniquity like water!
17 Listen to me, I have a lesson for you: I will tell you of my own experience,
18 and of the teaching of the sages, those faithful guardians of the tradition of their fathers,
19 to whom alone the land was given, with never a foreigner to mix with them.
20 The life of the wicked is unceasing torment, the years allotted to the tyrant are numbered.
21 The danger signal ever echoes in his ear, in the midst of peace the marauder swoops on him.
22 He has no hope of fleeing from the darkness, but knows that he is destined for the sword,
23 marked down as meat for the vulture. He knows that his ruin is at hand.
24 The hour of darkness makes him terrified; distress and anguish close in on him, as though some king were mounting an attack.
25 He raised his hand against God, he ventured to defy Shaddai.
26 Blindly he bore down on him from behind his massive shield.
27 His face had grown full and fat, and his thighs too heavy with flesh.
28 He had taken possession of ruined towns and made his dwelling in deserted houses.
29 But all his careful building will go once more to ruin; not for him increase of wealth, his riches will not last, no longer will he cast his shadow over the land.
30 A flame will wither up his tender buds; the wind will carry off his blossom.
31 But he should not trust in his great stature, if he would not trust in vain.
32 His boughs will wither before their time, and his branches never again be green.
33 Like a vine he will let his unripe clusters fall, like an olive shed his blossom.
34 Ah yes, the sinner’s brood is barren, and fire consumes the tents of the venal.
35 Conceive mischief, and you breed disaster, and carry in yourself deceitfulness.’