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13“Look, my eye has seen all this, my ear has heard and understood it. ²What you know, I also know; I am not inferior to you. ³But I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to argue my case with God. ⁴As for you, you whitewash with lies; all of you are worthless physicians. ⁵If you would only keep silent, that would be your wisdom! ⁶Hear now my reasoning, and listen to the pleadings of my lips. ⁷Will you speak falsely for God, and speak deceitfully for him? ⁸Will you show partiality toward him, will you plead the case for God? ⁹Will it be well with you when he searches you out? Or can you deceive him, as one person deceives another? ¹⁰He will surely rebuke you if in secret you show partiality. ¹¹Will not his majesty terrify you, and the dread of him fall upon you? ¹²Your maxims are proverbs of ashes, your defenses are defenses of clay.

¹³“Let me have silence, and I will speak, and let come on me what may. ¹⁴I will take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in my hand. ¹⁵See, he will kill me; I have no hope; but I will defend my ways to his face. ¹⁶This will be my salvation, that the godless shall not come before him. ¹⁷Listen carefully to my words, and let my declaration be in your ears. ¹⁸I have indeed prepared my case; I know that I shall be vindicated. ¹⁹Who is there that will contend with me? For then I would be silent and die. ²⁰Only grant two things to me, then I will not hide myself from your face: ²¹withdraw your hand far from me, and do not let dread of you terrify me. ²²Then call, and I will answer; or let me speak, and you reply to me.

²³How many are my iniquities and my sins? Make me know my transgression and my sin. ²⁴Why do you hide your face, and count me as your enemy? ²⁵Will you frighten a windblown leaf and pursue dry chaff? ²⁶For you write bitter things against me, and make me reap the iniquities of my youth. ²⁷You put my feet in the stocks, and watch all my paths; you set a bound to the soles of my feet. ²⁸One wastes away like a rotten thing, like a garment that is moth-eaten.

14“A mortal, born of woman, few of days and full of trouble, ²comes up like a flower and withers, flees like a shadow and does not last. ³Do you fix your eyes on such a one? Do you bring me into judgment with you? ⁴Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? No one can. ⁵Since their days are determined, and the number of their months is known to you, and you have appointed the bounds that they cannot pass, ⁶look away from them, and desist, that they may enjoy, like laborers, their days.

⁷“For there is hope for a tree, if it is cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its shoots will not cease. ⁸Though its root grows old in the earth, and its stump dies in the ground, ⁹yet at the scent of water it will bud and put forth branches like a young plant. ¹⁰But mortals die, and are laid low; humans expire, and where are they? ¹¹As waters fail from a lake, and a river wastes away and dries up, ¹²so mortals lie down and do not rise again; until the heavens are no more, they will not awake or be roused out of their sleep. ¹³Oh that you would hide me in Sheol, that you would conceal me until your wrath is past, that you would appoint me a set time, and remember me! ¹⁴If mortals die, will they live again? All the days of my service I would wait until my release should come. ¹⁵You would call, and I would answer you; you would long for the work of your hands.

¹⁶For then you would not number my steps, you would not keep watch over my sin; ¹⁷my transgression would be sealed up in a bag, and you would cover over my iniquity. ¹⁸“But the mountain falls and crumbles away, and the rock is removed from its place; ¹⁹the waters wear away the stones; the torrents wash away the soil of the earth; so you destroy the hope of mortals. ²⁰You prevail forever against them, and they pass away; you change their countenance, and send them away. ²¹Their children come to honor, and they do not know it; they are brought low, and it goes unnoticed. ²²They feel only the pain of their own bodies, and mourn only for themselves.”

15Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered: ²“Should the wise answer with windy knowledge, and fill themselves with the east wind? ³Should they argue in unprofitable talk, or in words with which they can do no good? ⁴But you are doing away with the fear of God, and hindering meditation before God. ⁵For your iniquity teaches your mouth, and you choose the tongue of the crafty. ⁶Your 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? ⁸Have you listened in the council of God? And do you limit wisdom to yourself? ⁹What do you know that we do not know? What do you understand that is not clear to us? ¹⁰The gray-haired and the aged are on our side, those older than your father. ¹¹Are the consolations of God too small for you, or the word that deals gently with you? ¹²Why does your heart carry you away, and why do your eyes flash, ¹³so that you turn your spirit against God, and let such words go out of your mouth? ¹⁴What are mortals, that they can be clean? Or those born of woman, that they can be righteous? ¹⁵God puts no trust even in his holy ones, and the heavens are not clean in his sight; ¹⁶how 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— ¹⁸what sages have told, and their ancestors have not hidden, ¹⁹to whom alone the land was given, and no stranger passed among them. ²⁰The wicked writhe in pain all their days, through all the years that are laid up for the ruthless. ²¹Terrifying sounds are in their ears; in prosperity the destroyer will come upon them. ²²They despair of returning from darkness, and they are destined for the sword. ²³They wander abroad for bread, saying, ‘Where is it?’ They know that a day of darkness is ready at hand; ²⁴distress and anguish terrify them; they prevail against them, like a king prepared for battle. ²⁵Because they stretched out their hands against God, and bid defiance to the Almighty, ²⁶running stubbornly against him with a thick-bossed shield; ²⁷because they have covered their faces with their fat, and gathered fat upon their loins, ²⁸they will live in desolate cities, in houses that no one should inhabit, houses destined to become heaps of ruins; ²⁹they will not be rich, and their wealth will not endure, nor will they strike root in the earth; ³⁰they will not escape from darkness; the flame will dry up their shoots, and their blossom will be swept away by the wind. ³¹Let them not trust in emptiness, deceiving themselves; for emptiness will be their recompense. ³²It will be paid in full before their time, and their branch will not be green. ³³They will shake off their unripe grape, like the vine, and cast off their blossoms, like the olive tree. ³⁴For the company of the godless is barren, and fire consumes the tents of bribery. ³⁵They conceive mischief and bring forth evil and their heart prepares deceit.”

16Then Job answered: ²“I have heard many such things; miserable comforters are you all. ³Have windy words no limit? Or what provokes you that you keep on talking? ⁴I 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. ⁵I 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? ⁷Surely now God has worn me out; he has made desolate all my company. ⁸And he has shriveled me up, which is a witness against me; my leanness has risen up against me, and it testifies to my face. ⁹He has torn me in his wrath, and hated me; he has gnashed his teeth at me; my adversary sharpens his eyes against me. ¹⁰They have gaped at me with their mouths; they have struck me insolently on the cheek; they mass themselves together against me. ¹¹God gives me up to the ungodly, and casts me into the hands of the wicked. ¹²I 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; ¹³his archers surround me. He slashes open my kidneys, and shows no mercy; he pours out my gall on the ground. ¹⁴He bursts upon me again and again; he rushes at me like a warrior. ¹⁵I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin, and have laid my strength in the dust. ¹⁶My face is red with weeping, and deep darkness is on my eyelids,

¹⁷though 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. ¹⁹Even now, in fact, my witness is in heaven, and he that vouches for me is on high. ²⁰My friends scorn me; my eye pours out tears to God, ²¹that he would maintain the right of a mortal with God, as one does for a neighbor. ²²For when a few years have come, I shall go the way from which I shall not return.