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15:1  Eliphaz reiterated his points.
15:2  Eliphaz: Does a wise man reply with windy knowledge and fill up his belly with the hot east wind?
15:3  Does a wise man reason with impotent chatter, with bankrupt words of no account?
15:4  Indeed, Job, you have ignored your responsibility to revere God and depreciated your own thoughts toward God;
15:5  For your faults inform your speech, and your language is tricky.
15:6  Your own mouth condemns you, not I; your own lips volunteer as witnesses against you.
15:7  Were you the firstborn among men? Were you introduced to the earth before the hills were conceived?
15:8  Were you allowed to listen in on the deliberations in God’s assembly? Do you imagine all knowledge to be confined to you and you only?
15:9  What do you know that we don’t know? Do you have an understanding that has somehow eluded us?
15:10  We have gray hairs and elders among us weighed down with years, heavier than your father.
15:11  Do you find God’s many comforts too meager and His gentle speech to you too mild?
15:12  What has stripped you of your reason, carried away your heart? Why do your eyes flash with anger—
15:13  So much so that you unleash your spirit and spray out such speeches against God?
15:14  What is humankind, that people would be considered pure? And among those born of women, who could possibly be innocent?
15:15  Look, if God refuses to trust even His holy attendants, if even the heavens above are impure in His eyes,
15:16  Then how much less regard must He show for humankind, who is base and corrupt, or for Adam’s children who drink sin like water.
15:17  Eliphaz: I will tell it like it is, so listen. I’ll recount what I have seen:
15:18  The very things that knowledgeable men have declared and which they do not hide that they heard from their fathers
15:19  To whom the land was granted long ago when no foreigners were among them.
15:20  The wicked man endures misery his whole life long; and many years of sorrow are stored up for the ruthless.
15:21  His ears are assailed by the sounds of terror; but when he is finally at peace, the destroyer seizes him.
15:22  Unsure that he will ever escape darkness, he lives ever-conscious of the sword.
15:23  He wanders aimlessly in search of food. “Where is it?” he asks. He knows all the while that the great day of darkness is imminent.
15:24  He is addled by strain and anxiety, terrified; he will be overwhelmed as if by a king about to descend upon his enemy in war.
15:25  For he raises his fist to God and acts arrogantly like a hero against the Highest One.
15:26  He runs at Him, headlong, headstrong, and leads his charge behind the thick protection of a massive shield.
15:27  Strong and healthy, he has nourished himself well and prospered until his face and his thighs are pleasantly fat.
15:28  He lodges in evacuated towns in empty houses unfit for habitation, in buildings condemned to rubble and ruin.
15:29  He will never be rich; his wealth will not last, nor will he have possessions enough for any to put down roots.
15:30  He will not manage to escape from darkness, as it scorches like tender branches that wilt in the flame; He will blow away like the breath of his mouth.
15:31  Don’t let him fool himself; if he trusts in the emptiness of his vanity, emptiness will be his reward.
15:32  Before his time is up, it will all be finished and the branches of his trees will never leaf out.
15:33  He will be like the vine that drops its immature grapes, the olive tree that sheds its own blossoms.
15:34  O the gathering of the godless is unfruitful, and fire consumes the tents of those who pervert justice by giving bribes.
15:35  Their intercourse yields only the conception of misconduct, the birth of sinfulness, and their wombs carry only lies to term.