1: Eliphaz of Teman spoke a second time:
2: "If you were truly wise, would you sound so much like a windbag, belching hot air?
3: Would you talk nonsense in the middle of a serious argument, babbling baloney?
4: Look at you! You trivialize religion, turn spiritual conversation into empty gossip.
5: It's your sin that taught you to talk this way. You chose an education in fraud.
6: Your own words have exposed your guilt. It's nothing I've said--you've incriminated yourself!
7: Do you think you're the first person to have to deal with these things? Have you been around as long as the hills?
8: Were you listening in when God planned all this? Do you think you're the only one who knows anything?
9: What do you know that we don't know? What insights do you have that we've missed?
10: Gray beards and white hair back us up--old folks who've been around a lot longer than you.
11: Are God's promises not enough for you, spoken so gently and tenderly?
12: Why do you let your emotions take over, lashing out and spitting fire,
13: Pitting your whole being against God by letting words like this come out of your mouth?
14: Do you think it's possible for any mere mortal to be sinless in God's sight, for anyone born of a human mother to get it all together?
15: Why, God can't even trust his holy angels. He sees the flaws in the very heavens themselves,
16: So how much less we humans, smelly and foul, who lap up evil like water?
17: "I've a thing or two to tell you, so listen up! I'm letting you in on my views;
18: It's what wise men and women have always taught, holding nothing back from what they were taught
19: By their parents, back in the days when they had this land all to themselves:
20: Those who live by their own rules, not God's, can expect nothing but trouble, and the longer they live, the worse it gets.
21: Every little sound terrifies them. Just when they think they have it made, disaster strikes.
22: They despair of things ever getting better--they're on the list of people for whom things always turn out for the worst.
23: They wander here and there, never knowing where the next meal is coming from--every day is doomsday!
24: They live in constant terror, always with their backs up against the wall
25: Because they insist on shaking their fists at God, defying God Almighty to his face,
26: Always and ever at odds with God, always on the defensive.
27: "Even if they're the picture of health, trim and fit and youthful,
28: They'll end up living in a ghost town sleeping in a hovel not fit for a dog, a ramshackle shack.
29: They'll never get ahead, never amount to a hill of beans.
30: And then death--don't think they'll escape that! They'll end up shriveled weeds, brought down by a puff of God's breath.
31: There's a lesson here: Whoever invests in lies, gets lies for interest,
32: Paid in full before the due date. Some investment!
33: They'll be like fruit frost-killed before it ripens, like buds sheared off before they bloom.
34: The godless are fruitless--a barren crew; a life built on bribes goes up in smoke.
35: They have sex with sin and give birth to evil. Their lives are wombs for breeding deceit." HKJob Defends HimselfHK If You Were in My Shoes