Knox Bible

1

Then answered Eliphaz the Themanite:

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This is not a wise man’s way, to answer with windy sophistries, as if thou hadst the sirocco in thy blood,

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ill matched for the contest, prating to thy hurt.

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Worse, if thou hadst thy way, all reverence should be abolished, all devotion at an end.

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Thy tongue takes its instructions from a sinful heart; this is rebel speech.

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No need for me to prove thee a guilty man, thy words prove it; thy own lips arraign thee.

7

Tell me, was thine some primeval birth; wast thou made before the hills?

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Hast thou overheard the secrets of God’s council-chamber, that thou thinkest him no match for thee in wisdom?

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What knowledge hast thou but we share it, what discernment greater than ours?

10

We too have ancients among us, grey-headed men that have seen more days than any father of thine.

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It should be no great matter for God to comfort thee, if thy untimely speech did not forbid it;✻

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what mean these transports, why does that eye roll so wildly?

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What pride is this that would cross God himself, moving thee to rash utterance?

14

It is not in man to live a life all blameless; never son of woman yet found acquittal.

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Fickle natures God finds among his very angels; the purity of heaven itself does not suffice him;

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what of man, the abominable, the defiled, athirst ever for wrong-doing?

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Listen, while I tell thee my mind; thou shalt hear what my own eyes have witnessed;

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thou shalt hear what wise men have said, making known the tradition of their fathers,

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that dwelt ever in their own land, and held no commerce with strangers.

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Proudly though he carry himself all his days, the godless man is on the rack; how long will his tyrannous reign last?

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All the while, terror whispers in his ear; danger there is none, but he sees plots everywhere.

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Treads he by dark ways, he never hopes to see light again, swords here, swords there to threaten him;

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ventures he out in search of food,✻ he doubts not his last hour is at hand;

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dangers threaten him, difficulties hedge him round, as though he were a king making ready for battle.

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And all because he chose God for his enemy, matched himself against omnipotence;

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head high in air he made the onslaught, proud of his strong sinews,

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like a bull with hanging dewlap and well-covered flanks.✻

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Now he is like some plant that grows✻ amid deserted streets, upon houses uninhabited that lie in ruins;

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no root shall he strike into the earth, of true wealth or abiding prosperity;

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never leave the shadows, but he is withered up by the heat or carried away by the blast.

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Let no fond hope delude him that he can buy off his doom;

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fall he must before his time; withered every branch,

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despoiled the vine with clusters yet unripe, shed the olive’s flower.

34

Barren, barren the schemer’s plot; the house of the bribe-taker shall burn about his ears.

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Vainly engendered, borne in the womb, brought forth, their load of misery and infamy and shame.