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Eliphaz Speaks: Job Undermines Religion

15Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered:
² ‘Should the wise answer with windy knowledge,
   and fill themselves with the east wind?
³ Should they argue in unprofitable talk,
   or in words with which they can do no good?
⁴ But you are doing away with the fear of God,
   and hindering meditation before God.
⁵ For your iniquity teaches your mouth,
   and you choose the tongue of the crafty.
⁶ Your own mouth condemns you, and not I;
   your own lips testify against you.

⁷ ‘Are you the firstborn of the human race?
   Were you brought forth before the hills?
⁸ Have you listened in the council of God?
   And do you limit wisdom to yourself?
⁹ What do you know that we do not know?
   What do you understand that is not clear to us?
¹⁰ The grey-haired and the aged are on our side,
   those older than your father.
¹¹ Are the consolations of God too small for you,
   or the word that deals gently with you?
¹² Why does your heart carry you away,
   and why do your eyes flash,^*
13 so that you turn your spirit against God,
   and let such words go out of your mouth?
¹⁴ What are mortals, that they can be clean?
   Or those born of woman, that they can be righteous?
¹⁵ God puts no trust even in his holy ones,
   and the heavens are not clean in his sight;
¹⁶ how much less one who is abominable and corrupt,
   one who drinks iniquity like water!

¹⁷ ‘I will show you; listen to me;
   what I have seen I will declare—
¹⁸ what sages have told,
   and their ancestors have not hidden,
¹⁹ to whom alone the land was given,
   and no stranger passed among them.
²⁰ The wicked writhe in pain all their days,
   through all the years that are laid up for the ruthless.
²¹ Terrifying sounds are in their ears;
   in prosperity the destroyer will come upon them.
²² They despair of returning from darkness,
   and they are destined for the sword.
²³ They wander abroad for bread, saying, “Where is it?”
   They know that a day of darkness is ready at hand;
²⁴ distress and anguish terrify them;
   they prevail against them, like a king prepared for battle.
²⁵ Because they stretched out their hands against God,
   and bid defiance to the Almighty,^*
26 running stubbornly against him
   with a thick-bossed shield;
²⁷ because they have covered their faces with their fat,
   and gathered fat upon their loins,
²⁸ they will live in desolate cities,
   in houses that no one should inhabit,
   houses destined to become heaps of ruins;
²⁹ they will not be rich, and their wealth will not endure,
   nor will they strike root in the earth;^*
30 they will not escape from darkness;
   the flame will dry up their shoots,
   and their blossom^* will be swept away^* by the wind.
³¹ Let them not trust in emptiness, deceiving themselves;
   for emptiness will be their recompense.
³² It will be paid in full before their time,
   and their branch will not be green.
³³ They will shake off their unripe grape, like the vine,
   and cast off their blossoms, like the olive tree.
³⁴ For the company of the godless is barren,
   and fire consumes the tents of bribery.
³⁵ They conceive mischief and bring forth evil
   and their heart prepares deceit.’

Job Reaffirms His Innocence

16Then Job answered:
² ‘I have heard many such things;
   miserable comforters are you all.
³ Have windy words no limit?
   Or what provokes you that you keep on talking?
⁴ I also could talk as you do,
   if you were in my place;
I could join words together against you,
   and shake my head at you.
⁵ I could encourage you with my mouth,
   and the solace of my lips would assuage your pain.

⁶ ‘If I speak, my pain is not assuaged,
   and if I forbear, how much of it leaves me?
⁷ Surely now God has worn me out;
   he has^* made desolate all my company.
⁸ And he has^* shrivelled me up,
   which is a witness against me;
my leanness has risen up against me,
   and it testifies to my face.
⁹ He has torn me in his wrath, and hated me;
   he has gnashed his teeth at me;
   my adversary sharpens his eyes against me.
¹⁰ They have gaped at me with their mouths;
   they have struck me insolently on the cheek;
   they mass themselves together against me.
¹¹ God gives me up to the ungodly,
   and casts me into the hands of the wicked.
¹² I was at ease, and he broke me in two;
   he seized me by the neck and dashed me to pieces;
he set me up as his target;
¹³   his archers surround me.
He slashes open my kidneys, and shows no mercy;
   he pours out my gall on the ground.
¹⁴ He bursts upon me again and again;
   he rushes at me like a warrior.
¹⁵ I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin,
   and have laid my strength in the dust.
¹⁶ My face is red with weeping,
   and deep darkness is on my eyelids,
¹⁷ though there is no violence in my hands,
   and my prayer is pure.

¹⁸ ‘O earth, do not cover my blood;
   let my outcry find no resting-place.
¹⁹ Even now, in fact, my witness is in heaven,
   and he that vouches for me is on high.
²⁰ My friends scorn me;
   my eye pours out tears to God,
²¹ that he would maintain the right of a mortal with God,
   as^* one does for a neighbour.
²² For when a few years have come,
   I shall go the way from which I shall not return.

Job Prays for Relief

17My spirit is broken, my days are extinct,
   the grave is ready for me.
² Surely there are mockers around me,
   and my eye dwells on their provocation.

³ ‘Lay down a pledge for me with yourself;
   who is there that will give surety for me?
⁴ Since you have closed their minds to understanding,
   therefore you will not let them triumph.
⁵ Those who denounce friends for reward—
   the eyes of their children will fail.

⁶ ‘He has made me a byword of the peoples,
   and I am one before whom people spit.
⁷ My eye has grown dim from grief,
   and all my members are like a shadow.
⁸ The upright are appalled at this,
   and the innocent stir themselves up against the godless.
⁹ Yet the righteous hold to their way,
   and they that have clean hands grow stronger and stronger.
¹⁰ But you, come back now, all of you,
   and I shall not find a sensible person among you.
¹¹ My days are past, my plans are broken off,
   the desires of my heart.
¹² They make night into day;
   “The light”, they say, “is near to the darkness.”^*
13 If I look for Sheol as my house,
   if I spread my couch in darkness,
¹⁴ if I say to the Pit, “You are my father”,
   and to the worm, “My mother”, or “My sister”,
¹⁵ where then is my hope?
   Who will see my hope?
¹⁶ Will it go down to the bars of Sheol?
   Shall we descend together into the dust?’