Then Eliphaz the Thaemanite answered and said,

Will a wise man give for answer a [mere] breath of wisdom? and does he fill up the pain of his belly,

reasoning with improper sayings, and with words wherein is no profit?

Have not you moreover cast off fear, and accomplished such words before the Lord?

You are guilty by the words of your mouth, neither have you discerned the words of the mighty.

Let your own mouth, and not me, reprove you: and your lips shall testify against you.

What! are you the first man that was born? or were you established before the hills?

Or have you heard the ordinance of the Lord? or has God used you as [his] counsellor? and has wisdom come [only] to you?

For what know you, that, we know not? or what understand you, which we do not also?

Truly among us [are] both the old and very aged man, more advanced in days than your father.

You have been scourged for [but] few of your sins: you have spoken haughtily [and] extravagantly.

What has your heart dared? or what have your eyes [aimed at],

that you have vented [your] rage before the Lord, and delivered such words from [your] mouth?

For who, being a mortal, [is such] that he shall be blameless? or, [who that is] born of a woman, that he should be just?

Forasmuch as he trusts not his saints; and the heaven is not pure before him.

Alas then, abominable and unclean is man, drinking unrighteousness as a draught.

But I will tell you, listen to me; I will tell you now what I have seen;

things wise men say, and their fathers have not hidden.

To them alone the earth was given, and no stranger came upon them.

All the life of the ungodly [is spent] in care, and the years granted to the oppressor are numbered.

And his terror is in his ears: just when he seems to be at peace, his overthrow will come.

Let him not trust that he shall return from darkness, for he has been already made over to the power of the sword.

And he has been appointed to be food for vultures; and he knows within himself that he is doomed to be a carcass: and a dark day shall carry him away as with a whirlwind.

Distress also and anguish shall come upon him: he shall fall as a captain in the first rank.

For he has lifted his hands against the Lord, and he has hardened his neck against the Almighty Lord.

And he has run against him with insolence, on the thickness of the back of his shield.

For he has covered his face with his fat, and made layers of fat upon his thighs.

And let him lodge in desolate cities, and enter into houses without inhabitant: and what they have prepared, others shall carry away.

Neither shall he at all grow rich, nor shall his substance remain: he shall not cast a shadow upon the earth.

Neither shall he in any wise escape the darkness: let the wind blast his blossom, and let his flower fall off.

Let him not think that he shall endure; for his end shall be vanity.

His harvest shall perish before the time, and his branch shall not flourish.

And let him be gathered as the unripe grape before the time, and let him fall as the blossom of the olive.

For death is the witness of an ungodly man, and fire shall burn the houses of them that receive gifts.

And he shall conceive sorrows, and his end shall be vanity, and his belly shall bear deceit.