Job 15

² “Should a wise man answer with vain knowledge,
    and fill himself with the east wind?
³ Should he reason with unprofitable talk,
    or with speeches with which he can do no good?
⁴ Yes, you do away with fear,
    and hinder devotion before God.
⁵ For your iniquity teaches your mouth,
    and you choose the language of the crafty.
⁶ Your own mouth condemns you, and not I.
    Yes, your own lips testify against you.

⁷ “Are you the first man who was born?
    Or were you brought out before the hills?
⁸ Have you heard the secret counsel of God?
    Do you limit wisdom to yourself?
⁹ What do you know that we don’t know?
    What do you understand which is not in us?
¹⁰ With us are both the gray-headed and the very aged men,
    much older than your father.
¹¹ Are the consolations of God too small for you,
    even the word that is gentle toward you?
¹² Why does your heart carry you away?
    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 should be clean?
    What is he who is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?
¹⁵ Behold, he puts no trust in his holy ones.
    Yes, 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, listen to me;
    that which I have seen I will declare
¹⁸ (which wise men have told by their fathers,
    and have not hidden it;
¹⁹ to whom alone the land was given,
    and no stranger passed among them):
²⁰ the wicked man writhes in pain all his days,
    even the number of years that are laid up for the oppressor.
²¹ A sound of terrors is in his ears.
    In prosperity the destroyer will come on him.
²² He doesn’t believe that he will return out of darkness.
    He is waited for by the sword.
²³ He wanders abroad for bread, saying, ‘Where is it?’
    He knows that the day of darkness is ready at his hand.
²⁴ Distress and anguish make him afraid.
    They prevail against him, as a king ready to the battle.
²⁵ Because he has stretched out his hand against God,
    and behaves himself proudly against the Almighty,
²⁶ he runs at him with a stiff neck,
    with the thick shields of his bucklers,
²⁷ because he has covered his face with his fatness,
    and gathered fat on his thighs.
²⁸ He has lived in desolate cities,
    in houses which no one inhabited,
    which were ready to become heaps.
²⁹ He will not be rich, neither will his substance continue,
    neither will their possessions be extended on the earth.
³⁰ He will not depart out of darkness.
    The flame will dry up his branches.
    He will go away by the breath of God’s mouth.
³¹ Let him not trust in emptiness, deceiving himself;
    for emptiness will be his reward.
³² It will be accomplished before his time.
    His branch will not be green.
³³ He will shake off his unripe grape as the vine,
    and will cast off his flower as the olive tree.
³⁴ For the company of the godless will be barren,
    and fire will consume the tents of bribery.
³⁵ They conceive mischief and produce iniquity.
    Their heart prepares deceit.”

Job 14   ■   Job 16