Job 15 · Clearspring

Eliphaz: Job Does Not Fear God

¹Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered,+ ²“Should a wise man answer with vain knowledge, and fill himself with the east wind?+ ³Should he reason with unprofitable talk, or with speeches with which he can do no good?+ ⁴Yes, you do away with fear, and hinder devotion before God.+ ⁵For your iniquity teaches your mouth, and you choose the language of the crafty.+ ⁶Your own mouth condemns you, and not I. Yes, your own lips testify against you.+ ⁷“Are you the first man who was born? Or were you brought out before the hills?+ ⁸Have you heard the secret counsel of God? Do you limit wisdom to yourself?+ ⁹What do you know that we don’t know? What do you understand which is not in us?+ ¹⁰With us are both the grey-headed and the very aged men, much older than your father.+ ¹¹Are the consolations of God too small for you, even the word that is gentle towards you?+ ¹²Why does your heart carry you away? Why do your eyes flash,+ ¹³that you turn your spirit against God, and let such words go out of your mouth?+ ¹⁴What is man, that he should be clean? What is he who is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?+ ¹⁵Behold, he puts no trust in his holy ones. Yes, the heavens are not clean in his sight;+ ¹⁶how much less one who is abominable and corrupt, a man who drinks iniquity like water!+ ¹⁷“I will show you, listen to me; that which I have seen I will declare+ ¹⁸(which wise men have told by their fathers, and have not hidden it;+ ¹⁹to whom alone the land was given, and no stranger passed amongst them):+ ²⁰the wicked man writhes in pain all his days, even the number of years that are laid up for the oppressor.+ ²¹A sound of terrors is in his ears. In prosperity the destroyer will come on him.+ ²²He doesn’t believe that he will return out of darkness. He is waited for by the sword.+ ²³He wanders abroad for bread, saying, ‘Where is it?’ He knows that the day of darkness is ready at his hand.+ ²⁴Distress and anguish make him afraid. They prevail against him, as a king ready to the battle.+ ²⁵Because he has stretched out his hand against God, and behaves himself proudly against the Almighty,+ ²⁶he runs at him with a stiff neck, with the thick shields of his bucklers,+ ²⁷because he has covered his face with his fatness, and gathered fat on his thighs.+ ²⁸He has lived in desolate cities, in houses which no one inhabited, which were ready to become heaps.+ ²⁹He will not be rich, neither will his substance continue, neither will their possessions be extended on the earth.+ ³⁰He will not depart out of darkness. The flame will dry up his branches. He will go away by the breath of God’s mouth.+ ³¹Let him not trust in emptiness, deceiving himself, for emptiness will be his reward.+ ³²It will be accomplished before his time. His branch will not be green.+ ³³He will shake off his unripe grape as the vine, and will cast off his flower as the olive tree.+ ³⁴For the company of the godless will be barren, and fire will consume the tents of bribery.+ ³⁵They conceive mischief and produce iniquity. Their heart prepares deceit.”+

Eliphaz: Job Does Not Fear God

Study Job 15