Job 22

Eliphaz’s Third Speech

¹Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said,[#Hebrew “And”]

²“Can a man be of use to God?

Yes, can the wise be of use to him?

³Is it a pleasure to Shaddai if you are righteous,

or a gain if you make your ways blameless?

⁴Does he reprove you because of your reverence

or enter into judgment with you?

⁵Is not your wickedness great,

and there is no end to your iniquities?

⁶“Indeed, you have required a pledge from your family for nothing,

and you have stripped off the clothes of the naked.

⁷You have given no water for the weary to drink,

and you withheld food from the hungry.

⁸And the land belongs to the man of power,[#Literally “man of power for him”]

and the favored lives in it.

⁹You have sent widows away empty-handed,

and the arms of orphans were crushed.

¹⁰Therefore trapping nets are all around you,

and panic suddenly terrifies you,

¹¹or it is so dark you cannot see,

and a flood of water covers you.

¹²“Is not God in the height of the heavens?

But see how lofty are the highest stars.

¹³And you ask, ‘What does God know?

Can he judge through deep gloom?

¹⁴Thick clouds are a covering for him, so that he does not see;

and he walks about on the dome of heaven.’

¹⁵Will you keep to the way of old

that the people of mischief have trod,

¹⁶who were snatched away before their time,[#Literally “and not time”]

whose foundation was washed away by a current?

¹⁷Those who said to God, ‘Turn away from us,’

and ‘What can Shaddai do to us?’

¹⁸Yet he himself filled up their houses with good things,[#Hebrew “And”; #Emphatic personal pronoun]

but the schemes of the wicked are repugnant to me.

¹⁹The righteous see, and they rejoice,

but the innocent one mocks at them.

²⁰Surely our foe perishes,[#Literally “If not”]

and fire has consumed their remainder.

²¹“Please reconcile yourself with him,

and be at peace; in this way, good will come to you.

²²Please receive instruction from his mouth,

and place his words in your heart.

²³If you return to Shaddai, you will be restored;

if you remove wickedness from your tent,

²⁴and if you put gold ore in the dust,

and the gold of Ophir in the rock of wadis,

²⁵then Shaddai will be your gold ore[#Hebrew “And”]

and your precious silver.

²⁶Indeed, then you will delight yourself in Shaddai,

and you will expect that God will be good to you.

²⁷You will pray to him, and he will hear you,

and you will pay your vows.

²⁸And you will decide on a matter, and it will be established for you,

and light will shine on your ways.

²⁹When they are humiliated, you say, ‘It is pride,’[#Literally “and you say,” or “then you say”]

for he saves the humble.

³⁰He will deliver the guilty,

and he will escape because of the cleanness of your hands.”