1. Then Eliphaz the Temanite responded saying:
2. “Can a man be useful to God? Can even a wise man benefit Him?
3. What pleasure is it to Shaddai if you are righteous? Or what gain if your ways are blameless?
4. Is it because of your reverence that He corrects you and He brings judgment against you?
5. Is not your wickedness great, and is there no end to your iniquity?
6. For you took pledges from your brothers for no reason; you stripped the naked of their clothing.
7. You gave the weary no water to drink and from the hungry you withhold bread,
8. Though you were a mighty man, owning land— an honored man living on it.
9. You sent widows away empty-handed and crushed the arms of orphans.
10. “That is why snares surround you, and why sudden fear terrifies you,
11. or why it is so dark that you cannot see. and why a flood of water covers you.
12. “Is not God in the heights of heaven? And see the lofty stars how high they are?
13. Yet you say, ‘What does God know? Does He judge through such thick darkness?
14. Thick clouds veil Him so He does not see, as He walks in 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 foundations washed away by a river.
17. They said to God, ‘Leave us alone! What can Shaddai do to us?’