Job 15

Eliphaz Accuses: Job Does Not Fear God

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 in unprofitable talk,
or in words with which he 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 first man who was born?
Or were you brought forth before the hills?
⁸Have you listened in the council of God?
And do you limit wisdom to yourself?
⁹ What do you know that we do not know?
What do you understand that is not clear to us?
¹⁰ Both the gray-haired and the aged are among us,
older than your father.
¹¹Are the comforts 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,
¹³that you turn your spirit against God
and bring such words out of your mouth?
¹⁴ What is man, that he can be pure?
Or he who is born of a woman, that he can be righteous?
¹⁵Behold, God puts no trust in his holy ones,
and the heavens are not pure in his sight;
¹⁶ how much less one who is abominable and corrupt,
a man who drinks injustice like water!

¹⁷"I will show you; hear me,
and what I have seen I will declare
¹⁸(what wise men have told,
without hiding it from their fathers,
¹⁹to whom alone the land was given,
and no stranger passed among them).
²⁰The wicked man writhes in pain all his days,
through all the years that are laid up for the ruthless.
²¹ Dreadful sounds are in his ears;
in prosperity the destroyer will come upon him.
²²He does not believe that he will return out of darkness,
and he is marked for the sword.
²³He wanders abroad for bread, saying, 'Where is it?'
He knows that a day of darkness is ready at his hand;
²⁴distress and anguish terrify him;
they prevail against him, like a king ready for battle.
²⁵Because he has stretched out his hand against God
and defies the Almighty,
²⁶ running stubbornly against him
with a thickly bossed shield;
²⁷because he has covered his face with his fat
and gathered fat upon his waist
²⁸and has lived in desolate cities,
in houses that none should inhabit,
which were ready to become heaps of ruins;
²⁹he will not be rich, and his wealth will not endure,
nor will his possessions spread over the earth;
³⁰he will not depart from darkness;
the flame will dry up his shoots,
and by the breath of his mouth he will depart.
³¹Let him not trust in emptiness, deceiving himself,
for emptiness will be his payment.
³²It will be paid in full before his time,
and his branch will not be green.
³³He will shake off his unripe grape like the vine,
and cast off his blossom like the olive tree.
³⁴For the company of the godless is barren,
and fire consumes the tents of bribery.
³⁵They conceive trouble and give birth to evil,
and their womb prepares deceit."

Job 16

Job Replies: Miserable Comforters Are You

¹Then Job answered and said:
²"I have heard many such things;
miserable comforters are you all.
³Shall windy words have an end?
Or what provokes you that you answer?
⁴I also could speak as you do,
if you were in my place;
I could join words together against you
and shake my head at you.
⁵I could strengthen 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,
and my leanness has risen up against me;
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.
¹⁰Men have gaped at me with their mouth;
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 apart;
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 does not spare;
he pours out my gall on the ground.
¹⁴He breaks me with breach upon breach;
he runs upon 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 on my eyelids is deep darkness,
¹⁷although there is no violence in my hands,
and my prayer is pure.

¹⁸"O earth, cover not my blood,
and let my cry find no resting place.
¹⁹Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven,
and he who testifies for me is on high.
²⁰My friends scorn me;
my eye pours out tears to God,
²¹that he would argue the case of a man with God,
as a son of man does with his neighbor.
²²For when a few years have come
I shall go the way from which I shall not return.

Job 17

Job Continues: Where Then Is My Hope?

¹"My spirit is broken; my days are extinct;
the graveyard is ready for me.
²Surely there are mockers about me,
and my eye dwells on their provocation.

³"Lay down a pledge for me with yourself;
who is there who will put up security for me?
⁴Since you have closed their hearts to understanding,
therefore you will not let them triumph.
⁵He who informs against his friends to get a share of their property—
the eyes of his children will fail.

⁶"He has made me a byword of the peoples,
and I am one before whom men spit.
⁷My eye has grown dim from vexation,
and all my members are like a shadow.
⁸The upright are appalled at this,
and the innocent stirs himself up against the godless.
⁹Yet the righteous holds to his way,
and he who has clean hands grows stronger and stronger.
¹⁰But you, come on again, all of you,
and I shall not find a wise man 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 hope for Sheol as my house,
if I make my bed 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?"

Job 18

Bildad Speaks: God Punishes the Wicked

¹Then Bildad the Shuhite answered and said:
²"How long will you hunt for words?
Consider, and then we will speak.
³Why are we counted as cattle?
Why are we stupid in your sight?
⁴You who tear yourself in your anger,
shall the earth be forsaken for you,
or the rock be removed out of its place?

⁵"Indeed, the light of the wicked is put out,
and the flame of his fire does not shine.
⁶The light is dark in his tent,
and his lamp above him is put out.
⁷His strong steps are shortened,
and his own schemes throw him down.
⁸For he is cast into a net by his own feet,
and he walks on its mesh.
⁹ A trap seizes him by the heel;
a snare lays hold of him.
¹⁰A rope is hidden for him in the ground,
a trap for him in the path.
¹¹ Terrors frighten him on every side,
and chase him at his heels.
¹²His strength is famished,
and calamity is ready for his stumbling.
¹³It consumes the parts of his skin;
the firstborn of death consumes his limbs.
¹⁴He is torn from the tent in which he trusted
and is brought to the king of terrors.
¹⁵In his tent dwells that which is none of his;
sulfur is scattered over his habitation.
¹⁶His roots dry up beneath,
and his branches wither above.
¹⁷His memory perishes from the earth,
and he has no name in the street.
¹⁸He is thrust from light into darkness,
and driven out of the world.
¹⁹He has no posterity or progeny among his people,
and no survivor where he used to live.
²⁰They of the west are appalled at his day,
and horror seizes them of the east.
²¹Surely such are the dwellings of the unrighteous,
such is the place of him who knows not God."