Job 15-16

Job 15

¹And Eliphaz the Temanite made answer and said,

²Will a wise man make answer with knowledge of no value, or will he give birth to the east wind?

³Will he make arguments with words in which is no profit, and with sayings which have no value?

⁴Truly, you make the fear of God without effect, so that the time of quiet worship before God is made less by your outcry.

⁵For your mouth is guided by your sin, and you have taken the tongue of the false for yourself.

⁶It is by your mouth, even yours, that you are judged to be in the wrong, and not by me; and your lips give witness against you.

⁷Were you the first man to come into the world? or did you come into being before the hills?

⁸Were you present at the secret meeting of God? and have you taken all wisdom for yourself?

⁹What knowledge have you which we have not? is there anything in your mind which is not in ours?

¹⁰With us are men who are grey-haired and full of years, much older than your father.

¹¹Are the comforts of God not enough for you, and the gentle word which was said to you?

¹²Why is your heart uncontrolled, and why are your eyes lifted up;

¹³So that you are turning your spirit against God, and letting such words go out of your mouth?

¹⁴What is man, that he may be clean? and how may the son of woman be upright?

¹⁵Truly, he puts no faith in his holy ones, and the heavens are not clean in his eyes;

¹⁶How much less one who is disgusting and unclean, a man who takes in evil like water!

¹⁷Take note and give ear to my words; and I will say what I have seen:

¹⁸(The things which wise men have got from their fathers, and have not kept secret from us;

¹⁹For only to them was the land given, and no strange people were among them:)

²⁰The evil man is in pain all his days, and the number of the years stored up for the cruel is small.

²¹A sound of fear is in his ears; in time of peace destruction will come on him:

²²He has no hope of coming safe out of the dark, and his fate will be the sword;

²³He is wandering about in search of bread, saying, Where is it? and he is certain that the day of trouble is ready for him:

²⁴He is greatly in fear of the dark day, trouble and pain overcome him:

²⁵Because his hand is stretched out against God, and his heart is lifted up against the Ruler of all,

²⁶Running against him like a man of war, covered by his thick breastplate; even like a king ready for the fight,

²⁷Because his face is covered with fat, and his body has become thick;

²⁸And he has made his resting-place in the towns which have been pulled down, in houses where no man had a right to be, whose fate was to become masses of broken walls.

²⁹He does not get wealth for himself, and is unable to keep what he has got; the heads of his grain are not bent down to the earth.

³⁰He does not come out of the dark; his branches are burned by the flame, and the wind takes away his bud.

³¹Let him not put his hope in what is false, falling into error: for he will get deceit as his reward.

³²His branch is cut off before its time, and his leaf is no longer green.

³³He is like a vine whose grapes do not come to full growth, or an olive-tree dropping its flowers.

³⁴For the band of the evil-doers gives no fruit, and the tents of those who give wrong decisions for reward are burned with fire.

³⁵Evil has made them with child, and they give birth to trouble; and the fruit of their body is shame for themselves.

Job 16

¹And Job made answer and said,

²Such things have frequently come to my ears: you are comforters who only give trouble.

³May words which are like the wind be stopped? or what is troubling you to make answer to them?

⁴It would not be hard for me to say such things if your souls were in my soul's place; joining words together against you, and shaking my head at you:

⁵I might give you strength with my mouth, and not keep back the comfort of my lips.

⁶If I say what is in my mind, my pain becomes no less: and if I keep quiet, how much of it goes from me?

⁷But now he has overcome me with weariness and fear, and I am in the grip of all my trouble.

⁸It has come up as a witness against me, and the wasting of my flesh makes answer to my face.

⁹I am broken by his wrath, and his hate has gone after me; he has made his teeth sharp against me: my haters are looking on me with cruel eyes;

¹⁰Their mouths are open wide against me; the blows of his bitter words are falling on my face; all of them come together in a mass against me.

¹¹God gives me over to the power of sinners, sending me violently into the hands of evil-doers.

¹²I was in comfort, but I have been broken up by his hands; he has taken me by the neck, shaking me to bits; he has put me up as a mark for his arrows.

¹³His bowmen come round about me; their arrows go through my body without mercy; my life is drained out on the earth.

¹⁴I am broken with wound after wound; he comes rushing on me like a man of war.

¹⁵I have made haircloth the clothing of my skin, and my horn is rolled in the dust.

¹⁶My face is red with weeping, and my eyes are becoming dark;

¹⁷Though my hands have done no violent acts, and my prayer is clean.

¹⁸O earth, let not my blood be covered, and let my cry have no resting-place!

¹⁹Even now my witness is in heaven, and the supporter of my cause is on high.

²⁰My friends make sport of me; to God my eyes are weeping,

²¹So that he may give decision for a man in his cause with God, and between a son of man and his neighbour.

²²For in a short time I will take the journey from which I will not come back.