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Then Eliyphaz the Teimani answered and said:
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“Shall a wise one answer with knowledge of wind and fill his belly with the east wind?
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Shall he argue with a word that does not profit, or with sayings by which he does no good?
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Indeed, you make fear void and diminish meditation before El.
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For your crookedness teaches your mouth, and you choose the tongue of the crafty.
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Your mouth condemns you, and not I; your lips answer against you.
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Were you the first Adam born? Were you brought forth before the hills?
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Have you heard the secret counsel of Eloah? Do you restrain wisdom to yourself?
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What do you know that we do not know? What do you understand that is not with us?
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Both the gray-headed and the aged are among us, greater in days than your father.
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Are the comforts of El small for you, and the Word spoken gently with you?
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Why does your heart take you away? And why do your eyes flash,
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that you turn your ruach against El and bring forth words from your mouth?
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What is mortal man, that he should be pure? And one born of ishah, that he should be righteous?
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See, He does not trust in His set-apart ones, and the heavens are not pure in His eyes.
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How much less one abominable and corrupt— an ish drinking crookedness like water.
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I shall declare to you; hear me. What I have seen I shall recount,
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which the wise declared and did not conceal from their fathers,
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to whom alone the land was given, and no stranger crossed through their midst.
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All the days of the wicked he writhes, and the number of years is hidden for the terrifying one.
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A voice of terrors is in his ears; in shalom the destroyer comes upon him.
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He does not trust that he shall return from darkness, and he is watched for by the sword.
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He wanders for bread, saying, ‘Where is it?’ He knows that a day of darkness is prepared in his hand.
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Distress and anguish terrify him; they overpower him like a sovereign prepared for battle.
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For he stretched his hand against El and made himself mighty against Shaddai.
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He runs against Him with a stiff neck, with the thick bosses of his shields.
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For he covered his face with his fatness and made fat upon his loins.
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He dwelt in cities that were cut off, in houses where no one dwells, which were prepared to become heaps.
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He shall not become rich, and his strength shall not stand; their produce shall not bend to the earth.
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He shall not turn away from darkness; flame shall dry his tender branch, and by the ruach of His mouth he shall depart.
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Let him not trust in emptiness, being led astray, for emptiness shall be his exchange.
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Before his day it shall be fulfilled, and his branch shall not be green.
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He shall shake off his unripe grape like a vine and cast off his blossom like an olive tree.
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For the assembly of the profane is barren, and fire devours the tents of bribery.
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They conceive trouble and give birth to worthlessness, and their inward parts prepare deceit.”