[1] Then Eliphaz from Teman answered: [2] Can a human being be useful to God? Can an intelligent person bring profit? [3] Does the Almighty delight in your innocence? Does he gain when you perfect your ways? [4] Does he rebuke you for your piety, bring you in for judgment? [5] Isn’t your wickedness massive, your iniquity endless? [6] You have taken payments from your family for no reason; stripped the naked, leaving no clothes; [7] denied water to the thirsty, withheld bread from the starving. ( [8] The powerful own land; the favored live in it.) [9] You have sent widows away empty; crushed orphans’ resources. [10] For this reason, snares surround you; sudden dread brings panic to you [11] or a darkness that you can’t see; rushing water will cover you. [12] Isn’t God in the heights of heaven; see how high the topmost stars are? [13] You say: “What does God know? Can he judge through thick clouds? [14] Clouds conceal him so he can’t see while he walks on heaven’s rim.” [15] Will you keep the ancient way traveled by sinful persons, [16] who were snatched prematurely when a river flooded their foundations, [17] who say to God, “Turn away from us; what can the Almighty do to us?” [18] Yet he filled their houses with good things; a sinner’s logic is beyond me. [19] The righteous see and rejoice; the innocent mock them: [20] our enemies are certainly cut off; fire will devour what’s left of them. [21] Get along well with God and be at peace; from this something good will come to you. [22] Receive instruction from his mouth; put his words in your mind. [23] If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored; if you keep wrongdoing out of your tent. [24] Lay your prized possession in the dust, your gold from Ophir on a rock in a desert streambed. [25] The Almighty will be your prized possession, silver piled up for you. [26] Then you will take pleasure in the Almighty; lift up your face to God. [27] You will pray to him, and he will hear you; you will fulfill your solemn promises. [28] If you decree something, it will stand; light will shine on your ways. [29] When they’re humbled, you will say: “Cheer up; God will rescue the lowly. [30] He will deliver the guilty; they will be saved by your pure hands.”
