Job, 15

1. Eliphaz of Teman spoke next. He said:

2. Does anyone wise respond with windy arguments, or feed on an east wind?

3. Or make a defence with ineffectual words and speeches good for nothing?

4. You do worse: you suppress reverence, you discredit discussion before God.

5. Your very fault incites you to speak like this, hence you adopt this language of cunning.

6. Your own mouth condemns you, and not I; your own lips bear witness against you.

7. Are you the first-born of the human race, brought into the world before the hills?

8. Have you been a listener at God's council, or established a monopoly of wisdom?

9. What knowledge do you have that we have not, what understanding that is not ours too?

10. One of us is an old, grey-headed man loaded with more years than your father!

11. Can you ignore these divine consolations and the moderate tone of our words?

12. How passion carries you away! And how you roll your eyes,

13. when you vent your anger on God and speeches come tripping off your tongue!

14. How can anyone be pure, anyone born of woman be upright?

15. God cannot rely even on his holy ones, to him, even the heavens seem impure.

16. How much more, this hateful, corrupt thing, humanity, which soaks up wickedness like water!

17. Listen to me, I have a lesson for you: I am going to impart my own experience

18. and the tradition of the sages who have remained faithful to their ancestors,

19. to whom alone the land was given -- no foreigner included among them.

20. The life of the wicked is unceasing torment, the years allotted to the tyrant are numbered.

21. A cry of panic echoes in his ear; when all is peace, his destroyer swoops down on him.

22. No more can he count on escaping from the dark, but knows that he is destined for the sword,

23. marked down as meat for the vulture. He knows that his ruin is at hand.

24. The hour of darkness terrifies him, distress and anguish assail him as when a king is poised for the assault.

25. He raised his hand against God, boldly he defied Shaddai!

26. Head lowered, he charged him, with his massively bossed shield.

27. His face had grown full and fat, and his thighs too heavy with flesh.

28. He had occupied the towns he had destroyed, with their uninhabited houses about to fall into ruins;

29. but no great profit to him, his luck will not hold, he will cast his shadow over the country no longer,

30. (he will not escape the dark). A flame will scorch his young shoots, the wind will carry off his blossom.

31. Let him not trust in his great height or delusion will be his.

32. His palm trees will wither before their time and his branches never again be green.

33. Like the vine, he will shake off his unripe fruit, like the olive tree, shed his blossom.

34. Yes, sterile is the spawn of the sinner, and fire consumes the tents of the venal.

35. Whoever conceives malice, breeds disaster, bears as offspring only a false hope.