Eliphaz Accuses Job of Great Wickedness

221 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered, 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, that you are righteous?
Or does it benefit him, that you make your ways perfect? 4 Is it for your piety that he reproves you,
that he enters with you into judgment?

5 Isn’t your wickedness great?
Neither is there any end to your iniquities. 6 For you have taken pledges from your brother for nothing,
and stripped the naked of their clothing. 7 You haven’t given water to the weary to drink,
and you have withheld bread from the hungry. 8 But as for the mighty man, he had the earth.
The honorable man, he lived in it. 9 You have sent widows away empty,
and the arms of the fatherless have been broken. 10 Therefore snares are around you.
Sudden fear troubles you, 11 or darkness, so that you can not see,
and floods of waters cover you. 12 “Isn’t God in the heights of heaven?
See the height of the stars, how high they are! 13 You say, ‘What does God know?
Can he judge through the thick darkness? 14 Thick clouds are a covering to him, so that he doesn’t see.
He walks on the vault of the sky.’

15 Will you keep the old way,
which wicked men have trodden, 16 who were snatched away before their time,
whose foundation was poured out as a stream, 17 who said to God, ‘Depart from us;’
and, ‘What can the Almighty do for 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 ridicule them, 20 saying, ‘Surely those who rose up against us are cut off.
The fire has consumed the remnant of them.’

21 “Acquaint yourself with him, now, and be at peace.
Thereby good shall come to you. 22 Please receive instruction from his mouth,
and lay up his words in your heart. 23 If you return to the Almighty, you shall be built up,
if you put away unrighteousness far from your tents. 24 Lay your treasure in the dust,
the gold of Ophir among the stones of the brooks. 25 The Almighty will be your treasure,
and precious silver to you. 26 For then you will delight yourself in the Almighty,
and shall lift up your face to God. 27 You shall make your prayer to him, and he will hear you.
You shall pay your vows. 28 You shall also decree a thing, and it shall be established to you.
Light shall shine on your ways. 29 When they cast down, you shall say, ‘be lifted up.’
He will save the humble person. 30 He will even deliver him who is not innocent.
Yes, he shall be delivered through the cleanness of your hands.”

Job Bewails His Birth

31 After this Job opened his mouth, and cursed the day of his birth. 2 Job answered: 3 “Let the day perish in which I was born,
the night which said, ‘There is a boy conceived.’ 4 Let that day be darkness.
Don’t let God from above seek for it,
neither let the light shine on it. 5 Let darkness and the shadow of death claim it for their own.
Let a cloud dwell on it.
Let all that makes black the day terrify it. 6 As for that night, let thick darkness seize on it.
Let it not rejoice among the days of the year.
Let it not come into the number of the months. 7 Behold, let that night be barren.
Let no joyful voice come therein. 8 Let them curse it who curse the day,
who are ready to rouse up leviathan. 9 Let the stars of its twilight be dark.
Let it look for light, but have none,
neither let it see the eyelids of the morning, 10 because it didn’t shut up the doors of my mother’s womb,
nor did it hide trouble from my eyes.

11 “Why didn’t I die from the womb?
Why didn’t I give up the spirit when my mother bore me? 12 Why did the knees receive me?
Or why the breast, that I should suck? 13 For now should I have lain down and been quiet.
I should have slept, then I would have been at rest, 14 with kings and counselors of the earth,
who built up waste places for themselves; 15 or with princes who had gold,
who filled their houses with silver: 16 or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been,
as infants who never saw light. 17 There the wicked cease from troubling.
There the weary are at rest. 18 There the prisoners are at ease together.
They don’t hear the voice of the taskmaster. 19 The small and the great are there.
The servant is free from his master.

20 “Why is light given to him who is in misery,
life to the bitter in soul, 21 Who long for death, but it doesn’t come;
and dig for it more than for hidden treasures, 22 who rejoice exceedingly,
and are glad, when they can find the grave? 23 Why is light given to a man whose way is hid,
whom God has hedged in? 24 For my sighing comes before I eat.
My groanings are poured out like water. 25 For the thing which I fear comes on me,
That which I am afraid of comes to me. 26 I am not at ease, neither am I quiet, neither have I rest;
but trouble comes.”