Job

SECOND SESSION OF SPEECHES

Eliphaz’s Second Speech

Eliphaz the Temanite spoke:

Should a wise man answer with empty notions, puff himself up with senseless opinions?

Should he argue in vain talk, in words that lack meaning?

You are undermining piety and meditation in God’s presence.

Your iniquity instructs your speech, and you speak like the crafty.

Your own mouth condemns you, your own lips, not mine.

Are you mankind’s firstborn? Were you brought forth before the hills?

Are you privy to God’s counsels? Do you alone possess wisdom?

What knowledge do you have that we do not? What do you understand that is unclear to us?

The gray-haired and the elderly are among us, men older than your father.

Are God’s consolations too small for you, and the words were spoken gently to you?

Why does your heart carry you away, why do your eyes flash

when you turn your wrath against God and utter such words as these?

What is man to claim innocence, the child of woman to be cleared of guilt?

If God puts no trust in his holy ones, and (the) heavens are not clean in his eyes,

how much less man who is vile and corrupt, who drinks evil as if it were water!

Listen and I will explain; I will tell you of my experience

and of the sages’ teachings passed down to them by their fathers,

to whom alone the land was given when no foreigner moved among them.

The wicked are in torment all their days. During the years allotted to the tyrant

his ears are filled with terrifying sounds, his peace shattered by the attack of marauders.

He despairs of escaping the darkness and sees himself given to the sword,

then left as a prey for vultures, he knows his destruction is at hand.

The hour of darkness fills him with dread, as distress and anguish close in on him.

But look: he challenged God, he raised his hand against the Almighty,

charging stubbornly against him behind a thick, sturdy shield.

His face had grown full and fat, his thighs bulged with flesh.

He would dwell in ruined cities, in deserted and crumbling houses.

He will not prosper or take root; he will not escape from darkness;

a flame will wither his shoots; the wind will carry off his blossom.

Let him not trust in greatness for he will get nothing in return.

He will be paid in full before his time, and his branches will never again be green.

Like a vine he will be stripped of unripe grapes; like the olive, he will shed its blossoms.

For the breed of the godless will be barren, and fire will consume the tents of extortioners.

Who conceives mischief will bring forth evil, deceit will spring from his own womb.