Job 15

2 “Will a wise man give his answer out of a breath of understanding,

and fill his belly with pain,

3 correcting with words that will not do,

with speeches that are no use at all?

4 Have you not thrown off fear as well,

and gone through with words like these in front of the Lord?

5 You are answerable for the words of your own mouth,

and you have not weighed the words of sovereigns.

6 Let your own mouth convict you, and not me;

your own lips will testify against you.

7 What of it? Were you the first of men to be born?

Were you set solid before the sand hills were?

8 Have you heard the Lord’s own decree?

Has wisdom come all the way to you?

9 What do you know that we do not know?

What do you understand that we do not?

10 Among us there is an old man, an ancient man,

heavier in days than your own father.

11 You have been whipped for only a few of your sins,

and you have talked far past all measure.

12 What has your heart dared?

What have your eyes fixed on,

13 that you have broken out in rage in front of the Lord,

and let words like these out of your mouth?

14 For who is a mortal, that he should be blameless,

or born of a woman, that he should be righteous?

15 If he puts no trust in his own holy ones,

and heaven is not clean in front of him,

16 then what of a man, detestable and unclean,

a man who drinks wrongdoing down like water!

17 I will tell you — listen to me.

What I have seen for myself, I will tell you,

18 things the wise will say,

and they have not hidden what came from their fathers.

19 To them alone the land was given,

and no foreigner came over them.

20 The whole life of an ungodly man is spent in worry,

and the years handed to a sovereign are counted out.

21 His terror is there in his own ears:

just when he seems to be at peace, his ruin arrives.

22 Let him not trust that he will turn back out of the darkness,

for he has already been handed over to the hands of iron,

23 and assigned as food for vultures.

He knows inside himself that he is waiting to become a corpse,

and a dark day will whirl him away.

24 Hardship and pressure will hold him down,

like a general falling in the front rank,

25 because he lifted his hands against the Lord,

and stiffened his neck in front of the Lord Almighty,

26 and ran at him in arrogance,

behind the thick back of his shield,

27 because he covered his face with his own fat,

and made a roll of it over his thighs.

28 Let him camp in deserted cities,

let him go into houses nobody lives in;

what those men got ready, others will carry off.

29 He will not be made rich,

and what he owns will not last;

he will not cast a shadow on the ground,

30 and he will not escape the darkness.

Let the wind wither his new shoot,

and let his blossom drop off.

31 Let him not trust that he will hold out,

for what comes of him will be empty.

32 His cutting will be ruined before its season,

and his branch will never grow thick.

33 Let him be picked like an unripe grape before its time,

and let him drop like the flower of the olive.

34 For death is the witness against an ungodly man,

and fire will burn the houses of men who take bribes.

35 He will conceive pains in the belly,

and what comes of him will be empty,

and his gut will carry deceit.”