1Then answered Eliphaz the Temanite, and said,
2Shall a wise man speak words of the wind? and fill his belly with the East wind?
3Shall he dispute with words not comely? or with talk that is not profitable?
4Surely thou hast cast off fear, and restrainest prayer before God:
5For thy mouth declareth thine iniquity, seeing thou hast chosen the tongue of the crafty.
6Thine own mouth condemneth thee, and not I, and thy lips testify against thee.
7Art thou the first man that was born? and wast thou made before the hills?
8Hast thou heard the secret counsel of God, and dost thou restrain wisdom to thee?
9What knowest thou that we know not? and understandest that is not in us?
10With us are both ancient and very aged men, far older than thy father.
11Seem the consolations of God small unto thee? is this thing strange unto thee?
12Why doth thine heart take thee away, and what do thine eyes mean,
13That thou answerest to God at thy pleasure, and bringest such words out of thy mouth?
14What is man, that he should be clean? and he that is born of woman, that he should be just?
15Behold, he found no steadfastness in his Saints: yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight.
16How much more is man abominable, and filthy, which drinketh iniquity like water?
17I will tell thee: hear me, and I will declare that which I have seen:
18Which wise men have told, as they have heard of their fathers, and have not kept it secret:
19To whom alone the land was given, and no stranger passed through them.
20The wicked man is continually as one that travaileth of child, and the number of years is hid from the tyrant.
21A sound of fear is in his ears, and in his prosperity the destroyer shall come upon him.
22He believeth not to return out of darkness: for he seeth the sword before him.
23He wandereth to and fro for bread where he may: he knoweth that the day of darkness is prepared at hand.
24Affliction and anguish shall make him afraid: they shall prevail against him as a king ready to the battle.
25For he hath stretched out his hand against God, and made himself strong against the Almighty.
26Therefore God shall run upon him, even upon his neck, and against the most thick part of his shield.
27Because he hath covered his face with his fatness, and hath collops in his flank.
28Though he dwell in desolate cities, and in houses which no man inhabiteth, but are become heaps,
29He shall not be rich, neither shall his substance continue, neither shall he prolong the perfection thereof in the earth.
30He shall never depart out of darkness: the flame shall dry up his branches, and he shall go away with the breath of his mouth.
31He believeth not that he erreth in vanity: therefore vanity shall be his change.
32His branch shall not be green, but shall be cut off before his day.
33God shall destroy him as the vine her sour grape, and shall cast him off, as the olive doth her flower.
34For the congregation of the hypocrite shall be desolate, and fire shall devour the houses of bribes.
35For they conceive mischief and bring forth vanity, and their belly hath prepared deceit.