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