Eliphaz accuses Job of folly
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Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered,
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“Should a wise man answer with vain knowledge, and fill himself with the east wind?
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Should he reason with unprofitable talk, or with speeches with which he can do no good?
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Yes, you do away with fear, and hinder devotion before God.
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For your iniquity teaches your mouth, and you choose the language of the crafty.
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Your own mouth condemns you, and not I. Yes, your own lips testify against you.
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“Are you the first man who was born? Or were you brought out before the hills?
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Have you heard the secret counsel of God? Do you limit wisdom to yourself?
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What do you know that we don’t know? What do you understand which is not in us?
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With us are both the gray-headed and the very aged men, much older than your father.
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Are the consolations of God too small for you, even the word that is gentle toward you?
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Why does your heart carry you away? Why do your eyes flash,
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that you turn your spirit against God, and let such words go out of your mouth?
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What is man, that he should be clean? What is he who is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?
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Behold, he puts no trust in his holy ones. Yes, the heavens are not clean in his sight;
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how much less one who is abominable and corrupt, a man who drinks iniquity like water!
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“I will show you, listen to me; that which I have seen I will declare
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(which wise men have told by their fathers, and have not hidden it;
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to whom alone the land was given, and no stranger passed among them):
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the wicked man writhes in pain all his days, even the number of years that are laid up for the oppressor.
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A sound of terrors is in his ears. In prosperity the destroyer will come on him.
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He doesn’t believe that he will return out of darkness. He is waited for by the sword.
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He wanders abroad for bread, saying, ‘Where is it?’ He knows that the day of darkness is ready at his hand.
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Distress and anguish make him afraid. They prevail against him, as a king ready to the battle.
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Because he has stretched out his hand against God, and behaves himself proudly against the Almighty,
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he runs at him with a stiff neck, with the thick shields of his bucklers,
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because he has covered his face with his fatness, and gathered fat on his thighs.
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He has lived in desolate cities, in houses which no one inhabited, which were ready to become heaps.
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He will not be rich, neither will his substance continue, neither will their possessions be extended on the earth.
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He will not depart out of darkness. The flame will dry up his branches. He will go away by the breath of God’s mouth.
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Let him not trust in emptiness, deceiving himself, for emptiness will be his reward.
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It will be accomplished before his time. His branch will not be green.
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He will shake off his unripe grape as the vine, and will cast off his flower as the olive tree.
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For the company of the godless will be barren, and fire will consume the tents of bribery.
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They conceive mischief and produce iniquity. Their heart prepares deceit.”