1. Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said:
2. Can a man be profitable to God?Can a wise man be profitable to him?
3. Does it please the Almighty that you are just?Does he gain if your ways are perfect?
4. Is it because of your piety that he reproves you—that he enters into judgment with you?
5. Is not your wickedness great,your iniquity endless?
6. You keep your relatives’ goods in pledge unjustly,leave them stripped naked of their clothing.
7. To the thirsty you give no water to drink,and from the hungry you withhold bread;
8. As if the land belonged to the powerful,and only the privileged could dwell in it!
9. You sent widows away empty-handed,and the resources of orphans are destroyed.
10. Therefore snares are round about you,sudden terror makes you panic,
11. Or darkness—you cannot see!A deluge of waters covers you.
12. Does not God, in the heights of the heavens,behold the top of the stars, high though they are?
13. Yet you say, “What does God know?Can he judge through the thick darkness?
14. Clouds hide him so that he cannot seeas he walks around the circuit of the heavens!”
15. Do you indeed keep to the ancient waytrodden by the worthless?
16. They were snatched before their time;their foundations a river swept away.
17. They said to God, “Let us alone!”and, “What can the Almighty do to us?”
18. Yet he had filled their houses with good things.The designs of the wicked are far from me!
19. The just look on and are glad,and the innocent deride them:
20. “Truly our enemies are destroyed,and what was left to them, fire has consumed!”
21. Settle with him and have peace.That way good shall come to you:
22. Receive instruction from his mouth,and place his words in your heart.
23. If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored;if you put iniquity far from your tent,
24. And treat raw gold as dust,the fine gold of Ophir as pebbles in the wadi,
25. Then the Almighty himself shall be your goldand your sparkling silver.
26. For then you shall delight in the Almighty,you shall lift up your face toward God.
27. Entreat him and he will hear you,and your vows you shall fulfill.
28. What you decide shall succeed for you,and upon your ways light shall shine.
29. For when they are brought low, you will say, “It is pride!”But downcast eyes he saves.
30. He will deliver whoever is innocent;you shall be delivered if your hands are clean.