² Eliphaz: Does a wise man reply with windy knowledge
        and fill up his belly with the hot east wind?
³     Does a wise man reason with impotent chatter,
        with bankrupt words of no account?
⁴     Indeed, Job, you have ignored your responsibility to revere God
        and depreciated your own thoughts toward God;
⁵     For your faults inform your speech,
        and your language is tricky.
⁶     Your own mouth condemns you, not I;
        your own lips volunteer as witnesses against you.

⁷     Were you the firstborn among men?
        Were you introduced to the earth before the hills were conceived?
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?
⁹     What do you know that we don’t know?
        Do you have an understanding that has somehow eluded us?
¹⁰     We have gray hairs and elders among us
        weighed down with years,
        heavier than your father.
¹¹     Do you find God’s many comforts too meager
        and His gentle speech to you too mild?
¹²     What has stripped you of your reason, carried away your heart?
        Why do your eyes flash with anger—
¹³     So much so that you unleash your spirit
        and spray out such speeches against God?

¹⁴     What is humankind, that people would be considered pure?
        And among those born of women,
        who could possibly be innocent?
¹⁵     Look, if God refuses to trust even His holy attendants,
        if even the heavens above are impure in His eyes,
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.

¹⁷ Eliphaz: I will tell it like it is, so listen.
        I’ll recount what I have seen:
¹⁸     The very things that knowledgeable men have declared
        and which they do not hide that they heard from their fathers
¹⁹     To whom the land was granted long ago
        when no foreigners were among them.
²⁰     The wicked man endures misery his whole life long;
        and many years of sorrow are stored up for the ruthless.
²¹     His ears are assailed by the sounds of terror;
        but when he is finally at peace, the destroyer seizes him.
²²     Unsure that he will ever escape darkness,
        he lives ever-conscious of the sword.
²³     He wanders aimlessly in search of food.
        “Where is it?” he asks.^[a]
    He knows all the while that the great day of darkness is imminent.
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.
²⁵     For he raises his fist to God
        and acts arrogantly like a hero against the Highest One.^[b]
26     He runs at Him, headlong, headstrong,
        and leads his charge behind the thick protection of a massive shield.
²⁷     Strong and healthy, he has nourished himself well and prospered
        until his face and his thighs are pleasantly fat.
²⁸     He lodges in evacuated towns in empty houses unfit for habitation,
        in buildings condemned to rubble and ruin.
²⁹     He will never be rich; his wealth will not last,
        nor will he have possessions enough for any to put down roots.
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.
³¹     Don’t let him fool himself;
        if he trusts in the emptiness of his vanity,
        emptiness will be his reward.
³²     Before his time is up, it will all be finished
        and the branches of his trees will never leaf out.
³³     He will be like the vine that drops its immature grapes,
        the olive tree that sheds its own blossoms.
³⁴     O the gathering of the godless is unfruitful,
        and fire consumes the tents of those who pervert justice by giving bribes.
³⁵     Their intercourse yields only the conception of misconduct,
        the birth of sinfulness,
        and their wombs carry only lies to term.