1Then Eliphaz the Thaemanite answered and said,

2Will a wise man give for answer a mere breath of wisdom? and does he fill up the pain of his belly,

3reasoning with improper sayings, and with words wherein is no profit?

4Have not you moreover cast off fear, and accomplished such words before the Lord?

5You are guilty by the words of your mouth, neither have you discerned the words of the mighty.

6Let your own mouth, and not me, reprove you: and your lips shall testify against you.

7What! are you the first man that was born? or were you established before the hills?

8Or have you heard the ordinance of the Lord? or has God used you as his counsellor? and has wisdom come only to you?

9For what know you, that, we know not? or what understand you, which we do not also?

10Truly among us are both the old and very aged man, more advanced in days than your father.

11You have been scourged for but few of your sins: you have spoken haughtily and extravagantly.

12What has your heart dared? or what have your eyes aimed at,

13that you have vented your rage before the Lord, and delivered such words from your mouth?

14For who, being a mortal, is such that he shall be blameless? or, who that is born of a woman, that he should be just?

15Forasmuch as he trusts not his saints; and the heaven is not pure before him.

16Alas then, abominable and unclean is man, drinking unrighteousness as a draught.

17But I will tell you, listen to me; I will tell you now what I have seen;

18things wise men say, and their fathers have not hidden.

19To them alone the earth was given, and no stranger came upon them.

20All the life of the ungodly is spent in care, and the years granted to the oppressor are numbered.

21And his terror is in his ears: just when he seems to be at peace, his overthrow will come.

22Let him not trust that he shall return from darkness, for he has been already made over to the power of the sword.

23And he has been appointed to be food for vultures; and he knows within himself that he is doomed to be a carcass: and a dark day shall carry him away as with a whirlwind.

24Distress also and anguish shall come upon him: he shall fall as a captain in the first rank.

25For he has lifted his hands against the Lord, and he has hardened his neck against the Almighty Lord.

26And he has run against him with insolence, on the thickness of the back of his shield.

27For he has covered his face with his fat, and made layers of fat upon his thighs.

28And let him lodge in desolate cities, and enter into houses without inhabitant: and what they have prepared, others shall carry away.

29Neither shall he at all grow rich, nor shall his substance remain: he shall not cast a shadow upon the earth.

30Neither shall he in any wise escape the darkness: let the wind blast his blossom, and let his flower fall off.

31Let him not think that he shall endure; for his end shall be vanity.

32His harvest shall perish before the time, and his branch shall not flourish.

33And let him be gathered as the unripe grape before the time, and let him fall as the blossom of the olive.

34For death is the witness of an ungodly man, and fire shall burn the houses of them that receive gifts.

35And he shall conceive sorrows, and his end shall be vanity, and his belly shall bear deceit.