Eliphaz’s Second Speech

15:1 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered:

15:2 “Does a wise man answer with blustery knowledge, or fill his belly with the east wind?

15:3 Does he argue with useless talk, with words that have no value in them?

15:4 But you even break off piety, and hinder meditation before God.

15:5 Your sin inspires your mouth; you choose the language of the crafty.

15:6 Your own mouth condemns you, not I; your lips testify against you.

15:7 “Were you the first man ever born? Were you brought forth before the hills?

15:8 Do you listen in God’s council? Do you limit wisdom to yourself?

15:9 What do you know that we do not know? What do you understand that is not understood by us?

15:10 The gray-haired and the aged are on our side, men far older than your father.

15:11 Are God’s consolations too trivial for you; or a word spoken in gentleness to you?

15:12 Why has your heart carried you away, and why do your eyes flash,

15:13 when you turn your rage against God and allow such words to proceed from your mouth?

15:14 What is man that he should be pure, or one born of woman, that he should be righteous?

15:15 If God places no trust in his holy ones, if even the heavens are not pure in his eyes,

15:16 how much less man, who is abominable and corrupt, who drinks in evil like water!

15:17 “I will explain to you; listen to me, and what I have seen, I will declare,

15:18 what wise men declare, hiding nothing, from the tradition of their ancestors,

15:19 to whom alone the land was given when no foreigner passed among them.