Job 15 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.
Then Eliphaz from Teman answered:
Does a wise man answer with for knowledge? Does he fill his with the
Does he with talk that settles nothing, with words that get him nowhere?
You, of all people, are wearing down the of God. You are cutting short the a
Your own guilt is coaching your mouth. You have chosen the tongue of a
Your mouth condemns you, not me. Your own lips take the stand against you.
Were you the first human ever born? Were you out in before the hills were?
Do you listen in on circle? Are you keeping wisdom to yourself?
What do you know that we don't know? What do you understand that isn't already among us?
The and the are on our side — men with more years on them than your father.
Are God's comforts too small for you, a word spoken gently to your face?
Why does your heart carry you off? Why do your eyes flash like that,
that you turn own against God and let words like these out of mouth?
What is a that he could come out clean? What is anyone of a that he could be in the
Look — he puts no trust in own, and even the skies are not clean in his eyes.
How much less a man who is rotten and spoiled, who drinks down wrongdoing like water.
Listen to me. I will show you. What I have for I will tell —
what wise men have handed down and never hid from their fathers,
back when the land was given to them alone and no had passed through them.
The in his whole life long, and the years stored up for the are counted out.
A sound of terror is always in his ears. When is the raider comes for him.
He has given up believing he will come back out of the dark. He is a man marked for the sword.
He wanders around looking for bread — where is it? — knowing the day of darkness is right there at his hand.
Trouble and pressure terrify him. They overpower him like a king braced for the charge.
All because he stretched out his hand against God and the against the
charging him head down and neck stiff, hiding behind the thick studs of his shield.
All because he covered his own face with fat and packed the flesh thick around his sides.
So he settles in towns that were wiped out, in houses where nobody should be living, in places already marked for the rubble heap.
He will not stay rich. What he has built will not stand. What he owns will never spread out across the land.
He will not get out of the dark. A flame will dry up shoot, and the of will carry him off.
Let him not put his trust in — he is only fooling himself. Emptiness is exactly what he will be paid.
He will be paid in full before his time is up, and his branch will never go green.
He will shake off his unripe grapes like a vine. He will drop his blossom like an olive tree.
where the gather, and fire eats the tents of men who take bribes.
They and to harm. The that carries it is preparing the lie.