Job 22 / 42
- 1
(Eliphaz Speaks: Job's Wickedness Is Great)
Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said:
- 2
"Can a man be profitable to God?
Surely he who is wise is profitable to himself.
- 3
Is it any pleasure to the Almighty if you are in the right,
or is it gain to him if you make your ways blameless?
- 4
Is it for your fear of him that he reproves you
and enters into judgment with you?
- 5
Is not your evil abundant?
There is no end to your iniquities.
- 6
For you have exacted pledges of your brothers for nothing
and stripped the naked of their clothing.
- 7
You have given no water to the weary to drink,
and you have withheld bread from the hungry.
- 8
The man with power possessed the land,
and the favored man lived in it.
- 9
You have sent widows away empty,
and the arms of the fatherless were crushed.
- 10
Therefore snares are all around you,
and sudden terror overwhelms you,
- 11
or darkness, so that you cannot see,
and a flood of water covers you.
- 12
"Is not God high in the heavens?
See the highest stars, how lofty they are!
- 13
But you say, 'What does God know?
Can he judge through the deep darkness?
- 14
Thick clouds veil him, so that he does not see,
and he walks on the vault of heaven.'
- 15
Will you keep to the old way
that wicked men have trod?
- 16
They were snatched away before their time;
their foundation was washed away.
- 17
They said to God, 'Depart from us,'
and 'What can the Almighty do to us?'
- 18
Yet he filled their houses with good things--
but the counsel of the wicked is far from me.
- 19
The righteous see it and are glad;
the innocent one mocks at them,
- 20
saying, 'Surely our adversaries are cut off,
and what they left the fire has consumed.'
- 21
"Agree with God, and be at peace;
thereby good will come to you.
- 22
Receive instruction from his mouth,
and lay up his words in your heart.
- 23
If you return to the Almighty you will be built up;
if you remove injustice far from your tents,
- 24
if you lay gold in the dust,
and gold of Ophir among the stones of the torrent-bed,
- 25
then the Almighty will be your gold
and your precious silver.
- 26
For then you will delight yourself in the Almighty
and lift up your face to God.
- 27
You will make your prayer to him, and he will hear you,
and you will pay your vows.
- 28
You will decide on a matter, and it will be established for you,
and light will shine on your ways.
- 29
For when they are humbled you say, 'It is because of pride';
but he saves the lowly.
- 30
He delivers even the one who is not innocent,
who will be delivered through the cleanness of your hands."