Job 15

Eliphaz’s Second Response to Job

1Then Eliphaz the Temanite replied:

2“A wise man wouldn’t answer with such empty talk!

You are nothing but a windbag.

3The wise don’t engage in empty chatter.

What good are such words?

4Have you no fear of God,

no reverence for him?

5Your sins are telling your mouth what to say.

Your words are based on clever deception.

6Your own mouth condemns you, not I.

Your own lips testify against you.

7“Were you the first person ever born?

Were you born before the hills were made?

8Were you listening at God’s secret council?

Do you have a monopoly on wisdom?

9What do you know that we don’t?

What do you understand that we do not?

10On our side are aged, gray-haired men

much older than your father!

11“Is God’s comfort too little for you?

Is his gentle word not enough?

12What has taken away your reason?

What has weakened your vision,*

13that you turn against God

and say all these evil things?

14Can any mortal be pure?

Can anyone born of a woman be just?

15Look, God does not even trust the angels.*

Even the heavens are not absolutely pure in his sight.

16How much less pure is a corrupt and sinful person

with a thirst for wickedness!

17“If you will listen, I will show you.

I will answer you from my own experience.

18And it is confirmed by the reports of wise men

who have heard the same thing from their fathers—

19from those to whom the land was given

long before any foreigners arrived.