1Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said:
2“Should a wise man answer with windy knowledge and fill his belly with the east wind?
3Should he argue with a word that is unprofitable, and with speeches by which he gains nothing?
4But you—you break down the fear of God and diminish meditation before God.
5For your iniquity instructs your mouth, and you choose the tongue of the crafty.
6Your own mouth condemns you, and not I; your own lips testify against you.
7Were you the first human to be born? Were you brought forth before the hills?
8Do you listen in the council of God? And do you keep wisdom to yourself?
9What do you know that we do not know? What do you understand that is not with us?
10Among us are both the gray-haired and the aged, older in days than your father.
11Are the consolations of God too little for you, and the word spoken gently with you?
12Why does your heart carry you away, and why do your eyes flash,
13that you turn your spirit against God and let such words go out from your mouth?
14What is mortal man that he should be pure, or one born of woman that he should be righteous?
15Behold, in his holy ones he does not trust, and the heavens are not pure in his eyes.
16How much less one who is abhorrent and corrupt, a man who drinks injustice like water!
17I will show you—listen to me—and what I have seen I will recount,
18what wise men declare, and have not concealed what came from their fathers—
19to them alone the land was given, and no stranger passed among them.
20All the days of the wicked he writhes in pain, and few years are stored up for the ruthless one.
21A sound of terrors is in his ears; in prosperity a destroyer comes upon him.
22He does not believe he will return from the darkness, and he is marked out for the sword.
23He wanders about for bread—where is it?—he knows that a day of darkness is ready at his hand.
24Distress and anguish terrify him; they overpower him like a king ready for battle,
25because he stretched out his hand against God and behaved arrogantly against the Almighty,
26running against him with a stiff neck, with the thick bosses of his shields;
27because he covered his face with his fat and made rolls of fat on his loins.
28He dwelt in ruined cities, in houses no one should inhabit, which were destined to become heaps of rubble.
29He will not grow rich, and his wealth will not endure, nor will their possessions spread out over the land.
30He will not depart from darkness; a flame will dry up his shoots, and he will depart by the breath of his mouth.
31Let him not trust in emptiness, deceiving himself, for emptiness will be his recompense.
32Before his day it will be paid in full, and his frond will not be green.
33He will shake off his unripe grapes like a vine, and cast off his blossom like an olive tree.
34For the company of the godless is barren, and fire consumes the tents of bribery.
35They conceive trouble and give birth to iniquity, and their belly prepares deceit.
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