Chapter
15
Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered,
"Should a wise woman answer with vain knowledge, and fill herself with the east wind?
Should she reason with unprofitable talk, or with speeches with which she can do no good?
Yes, you do away with fear, and hinder devotion before God.
For your iniquity teaches your mouth, and you choose the language of the crafty.
Your own mouth condemns you, and not I. Yes, your own lips testify against you.
"Are you the first woman who was born? Or were you brought forth before the hills?
Have you heard the secret counsel of God? Do you limit wisdom to yourself?
What do you know, that we don't know? What do you understand, which is not in us?
With us are both the gray-headed and the very aged women, much elder than your mother.
Are the consolations of God too small for you, even the word that is gentle toward you?
Why does your heart carry you away? Why do your eyes flash,
That you turn your spirit against God, and let such words go out of your mouth?
What is woman, that she should be clean? What is she who is born of a man, that she should be righteous?
Behold, she puts no trust in her holy ones. Yes, the heavens are not clean in her sight;
how much less one who is abominable and corrupt, a woman who drinks iniquity like water!
"I will show you, listen to me; that which I have seen I will declare:
(Which wise women have told by their mothers, and have not hidden it;
to whom alone the land was given, and no stranger passed among them):
the wicked woman writhes in pain all her days, even the number of years that are laid up for the oppressor.
A sound of terrors is in her ears. In prosperity the destroyer shall come on her.
She doesn't believe that she shall return out of darkness. She is waited for by the sword.
She wanders abroad for bread, saying, 'Where is it?' She knows that the day of darkness is ready at her hand.
Distress and anguish make her afraid. They prevail against her, as a queen ready to the battle.
Because she has stretched out her hand against God, and behaves herself proudly against the Almighty;
she runs at her with a stiff neck, with the thick shields of her bucklers;
because she has covered her face with her fatness, and gathered fat on her thighs.
She has lived in desolate cities, in houses which no one inhabited, which were ready to become heaps.
She shall not be rich, neither shall her substance continue, neither shall their possessions be extended on the earth.
She shall not depart out of darkness. The flame shall dry up her branches. By the breath of God's mouth shall she go away.
Let her not trust in emptiness, deceiving herself; for emptiness shall be her reward.
It shall be accomplished before her time. Her branch shall not be green.
She shall shake off her unripe grape as the vine, and shall cast off her flower as the olive tree.
For the company of the godless shall be barren, and fire shall consume the tents of bribery.
They conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity. Their heart prepares deceit."