Job 15
The Message
Eliphaz Attacks Again
You Trivialize Religion
15 1-16 Eliphaz of Teman spoke a second time:
“If you were truly wise, would you sound so much like a
windbag, belching hot air?
Would you talk nonsense in the middle of a serious argument,
babbling baloney?
Look at you! You trivialize religion,
turn spiritual conversation into empty gossip.
It’s your sin that taught you to talk this way.
You chose an education in fraud.
Your own words have exposed your guilt.
It’s nothing I’ve said—you’ve incriminated yourself!
Do you think you’re the first person to have to deal with these things?
Have you been around as long as the hills?
Were you listening in when God planned all this?
Do you think you’re the only one who knows anything?
What do you know that we don’t know?
What insights do you have that we’ve missed?
Gray beards and white hair back us up—
old folks who’ve been around a lot longer than you.
Are God’s promises not enough for you,
spoken so gently and tenderly?
Why do you let your emotions take over,
lashing out and spitting fire,
Pitting your whole being against God
by letting words like this come out of your mouth?
Do you think it’s possible for any mere mortal to be sinless in God’s sight,
for anyone born of a human mother to get it all together?
Why, God can’t even trust his holy angels.
He sees the flaws in the very heavens themselves,
So how much less we humans, smelly and foul,
who lap up evil like water?
Always at Odds with God
17-26 “I’ve a thing or two to tell you, so listen up!
I’m letting you in on my views;
It’s what wise men and women have always taught,
holding nothing back from what they were taught
By their parents, back in the days
when they had this land all to themselves:
Those who live by their own rules, not God’s, can expect nothing but trouble,
and the longer they live, the worse it gets.
Every little sound terrifies them.
Just when they think they have it made, disaster strikes.
They despair of things ever getting better—
they’re on the list of people for whom things always turn out for the worst.
They wander here and there,
never knowing where the next meal is coming from—
every day is doomsday!
They live in constant terror,
always with their backs up against the wall
Because they insist on shaking their fists at God,
defying God Almighty to his face,
Always and ever at odds with God,
always on the defensive.
27-35 “Even if they’re the picture of health,
trim and fit and youthful,
They’ll end up living in a ghost town
sleeping in a hovel not fit for a dog,
a ramshackle shack.
They’ll never get ahead,
never amount to much of anything.
And then death—don’t think they’ll escape that!
They’ll end up shriveled weeds,
brought down by a puff of God’s breath.
There’s a lesson here: Whoever invests in lies,
gets lies for interest,
Paid in full before the due date.
Some investment!
They’ll be like fruit frost-killed before it ripens,
like buds sheared off before they bloom.
The godless are fruitless—a barren crew;
a life built on bribes goes up in smoke.
They have sex with sin and give birth to evil.
Their lives are wombs for breeding deceit.”
Job 15
Revised Standard Version
Eliphaz Speaks: Job Undermines Religion
15 Then Eli′phaz the Te′manite answered:
2 “Should a wise man answer with windy knowledge,
and fill himself with the east wind?
3 Should he argue in unprofitable talk,
or in words with which he can do no good?
4 But you are doing away with the fear of God,
and hindering meditation before God.
5 For your iniquity teaches your mouth,
and you choose the tongue of the crafty.
6 Your own mouth condemns you, and not I;
your own lips testify against you.
7 “Are you the first man that was born?
Or were you brought forth before the hills?
8 Have you listened in the council of God?
And do you limit wisdom to yourself?
9 What do you know that we do not know?
What do you understand that is not clear to us?
10 Both the gray-haired and the aged are among us,
older than your father.
11 Are the consolations of God too small for you,
or the word that deals gently with you?
12 Why does your heart carry you away,
and why do your eyes flash,
13 that you turn your spirit against God,
and let such words go out of your mouth?
14 What is man, that he can be clean?
Or he that is born of a woman, that he can be righteous?
15 Behold, God puts no trust in his holy ones,
and the heavens are not clean in his sight;
16 how much less one who is abominable and corrupt,
a man who drinks iniquity like water!
17 “I will show you, hear me;
and what I have seen I will declare
18 (what wise men have told,
and their fathers have not hidden,
19 to whom alone the land was given,
and no stranger passed among them).
20 The wicked man writhes in pain all his days,
through all the years that are laid up for the ruthless.
21 Terrifying sounds are in his ears;
in prosperity the destroyer will come upon him.
22 He does not believe that he will return out of darkness,
and he is destined for the sword.
23 He wanders abroad for bread, saying, ‘Where is it?’
He knows that a day of darkness is ready at his hand;
24 distress and anguish terrify him;
they prevail against him, like a king prepared for battle.
25 Because he has stretched forth his hand against God,
and bids defiance to the Almighty,
26 running stubbornly against him
with a thick-bossed shield;
27 because he has covered his face with his fat,
and gathered fat upon his loins,
28 and has lived in desolate cities,
in houses which no man should inhabit,
which were destined to become heaps of ruins;
29 he will not be rich, and his wealth will not endure,
nor will he strike root in the earth;[a]
30 he will not escape from darkness;
the flame will dry up his shoots,
and his blossom[b] will be swept away[c] by the wind.
31 Let him not trust in emptiness, deceiving himself;
for emptiness will be his recompense.
32 It will be paid in full before his time,
and his branch will not be green.
33 He will shake off his unripe grape, like the vine,
and cast off his blossom, like the olive tree.
34 For the company of the godless is barren,
and fire consumes the tents of bribery.
35 They conceive mischief and bring forth evil
and their heart prepares deceit.”
Copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson
Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, and 1971 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.