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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.

17My spirit is broken, my days are extinct, the grave is ready for me. ²Surely 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? ⁴Since you have closed their minds to understanding, therefore you will not let them triumph. ⁵Those 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. ⁷My eye has grown dim from grief, and all my members are like a shadow. ⁸The upright are appalled at this, and the innocent stir themselves up against the godless. ⁹Yet the righteous hold to their way, and they that have clean hands grow stronger and stronger.

¹⁰But you, come back now, all of you, and I shall not find a sensible person among you. ¹¹My days are past, my plans are broken off, the desires of my heart. ¹²They make night into day; ‘The light,’ they say, ‘is near to the darkness.’ ¹³If I look for Sheol as my house, if I spread my couch in darkness, ¹⁴if I say to the Pit, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ or ‘My sister,’ ¹⁵where then is my hope? Who will see my hope? ¹⁶Will it go down to the bars of Sheol? Shall we descend together into the dust?”