Job 22

Eliphaz: is not your evil great?

¹Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered: ²Can a person be of any use to God? \q Even the wise benefit only themselves.^{a 3}Is the Almighty pleased if you are righteous? \q Is it any gain to him that you keep your ways blameless? ⁴Is it because you revere him that he rebukes you \q and enters into judgment with you? ⁵Is your evil not great? \q Is there no end to your iniquities? ⁶You took pledges from your relatives for no reason \q and stripped the poor of their clothing. ⁷You did not give the weary water to drink, \q and you kept back bread from the hungry. ⁸The land belonged to the man with power, \q and the favored man lived on it.^{b 9}Widows you sent away with empty hands, \q and the strength of the fatherless was crushed. ¹⁰So now traps surround you on every side, \q and sudden terror shakes you, ¹¹or darkness, where you cannot see, \q and a flood of waters covers you.^{c 12}Is not God up in the height of heaven? \q See the topmost stars, how high they are! ¹³And you ask, ‘What does God know? \q Can he judge through the thick cloud? ¹⁴Clouds are a screen around him, and he does not see; \q he walks about on the dome of the sky.’ ¹⁵Will you hold to the ancient path \q that wicked people have walked, ¹⁶who were seized before their time, \q whose foundations a river swept away? ¹⁷They told God, ‘Keep away from us! \q What can the Almighty do to us?’ ¹⁸And yet he had filled their houses with good things! \q But the counsel of the wicked is far from me. ¹⁹The righteous see it and are glad; \q the innocent laugh at them: ²⁰Surely our enemies are destroyed, \q and fire has eaten up what they left!^{d 21}Come to terms with God and be at peace; \q through this, good will come to you. ²²Take the teaching that comes from his mouth, \q and set his words in your heart. ²³If you return to the Almighty, you will be built up again; \q if you put wrongdoing far from your tent,^{e 24}if you lay your gold in the dust, \q your gold of Ophir among the stones of the streambeds,^{f 25}then the Almighty will be your gold \q and your silver piled high. ²⁶For then the Almighty will be your delight, \q and you will raise your face to God. ²⁷You will pray to him, and he will listen to you, \q and you will pay what you vowed. ²⁸Whatever you resolve will stand firm for you, \q and light will shine along your paths. ²⁹When others are laid low, you will say, ‘Up!’ \q and he will save the humble.^{g 30}He will set free even someone who is not innocent; \q that one will go free because your hands are clean.^h