Add parallel Print Page Options

Eliphaz’s Second Response to Job

15 Then Eliphaz the Temanite replied:

“A wise man wouldn’t answer with such empty talk!
    You are nothing but a windbag.
The wise don’t engage in empty chatter.
    What good are such words?
Have you no fear of God,
    no reverence for him?
Your sins are telling your mouth what to say.
    Your words are based on clever deception.
Your own mouth condemns you, not I.
    Your own lips testify against you.

“Were you the first person ever born?
    Were you born before the hills were made?
Were you listening at God’s secret council?
    Do you have a monopoly on wisdom?
What do you know that we don’t?
    What do you understand that we do not?
10 On 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?
12 What has taken away your reason?
    What has weakened your vision,[a]
13 that you turn against God
    and say all these evil things?

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. 15:12 Or Why do your eyes flash with anger; Hebrew reads Why do your eyes blink.

Eliphaz Speaks Again

15 Then Eliphaz from Teman responded:

“Should a wise person respond with knowledge based on wind?
    Should he fill his stomach with a wind storm from the east?
Should he engage in unprofitable argument,
    or give a speech that benefits no one?
Yet you dispense with fear of God
    and hinder meditations before God.
Because your sin dictates your speech,[a]
    you have chosen the language[b] of the crafty.
Your own mouth is condemning you, not I;
    your own lips will testify against you.”

Eliphaz Claims that Job is Guilty

“Were you the first person[c]to be born?
    Were you brought forth before the hills were made?
Have you listened in on God’s secret council?
    Have you limited wisdom only to yourself?
What do you know that we don’t know,
    or that you understand and that isn’t clear to us?

10 “We have both the gray-haired and the aged with us,
    and they are far older[d] than your father.
11 Are God’s encouragements inconsequential to you,
    even a word that has been spoken[e] gently to you?
12 Why have your emotions[f] carried you away?
    And why do your eyes flash
13 that you turn your anger[g] against God
    and speak words like this?

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. Job 15:5 Lit. mouth
  2. Job 15:5 Lit. tongue
  3. Job 15:7 Lit. man
  4. Job 15:10 Lit. are older by many days
  5. Job 15:11 The Heb. lacks spoken
  6. Job 15:12 Lit. heart
  7. Job 15:13 Lit. spirit