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Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said,
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Will a wise man give for answer a mere breath of wisdom? And does he fill up the pain of his belly,
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Reasoning with improper sayings, And with words wherein is no profit?
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Hast not thou moreover cast off fear, And accomplished such words before the Lord?
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Thou art guilty by the words of thy mouth, Neither hast thou discerned the words of the mighty.
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Let thine own mouth, and not me, reprove thee: And thy lips shall testify against thee.
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What! art thou the first man that was born? Or wert thou established before the hills?
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Or hast thou heard the ordinance of the Lord? Or has God used thee as his counselor? And has wisdom come only to thee?
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For what knowest thou, that we know not? Or what understandest thou, which we do not also?
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Truly among us are both the old and very aged man, More advanced in days than thy father.
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Thou hast been scourged for but few of thy sins: Thou hast spoken haughtily and extravagantly.
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What has thy heart dared? Or what have thine eyes aimed at,
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That thou hast vented thy rage before the Lord, And delivered such words from thy mouth?
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For who, being a mortal, is such that he shall be blameless? Or, who that is born of a woman, that he should be just?
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Forasmuch as he trusts not his saints; And the heaven is not pure before him.
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Alas then, abominable and unclean is man, Drinking unrighteousness as a draft.
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But I will tell thee, hearken to me; I will tell thee now what I have seen;
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Things wise men say, and their fathers have not hidden.
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To them alone the earth was given, And no stranger came upon them.
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All the life of the ungodly is spent in care, And the years granted to the oppressor are numbered.
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And his terror is in his ears: Just when he seems to be at peace, His overthrow will come.
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Let him not trust that he shall return from darkness, For he has been already made over to the power of the sword.
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And he has been appointed to be food for vultures; And he knows within himself that he is doomed to be a carcass: And a dark day shall carry him away as with a whirlwind.
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Distress also and anguish shall come upon him: He shall fall as a captain in the first rank.
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For he has lifted his hands against the Lord, And he has hardened his neck against the Almighty Lord.
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And he has run against him with insolence, On the thickness of the back of his shield.
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For he has covered his face with his fat, And made layers of fat upon his thighs.
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And let him lodge in desolate cities, And enter into houses without inhabitant: And what they have prepared, others shall carry away.
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Neither shall he at all grow rich, nor shall his substance remain: He shall not cast a shadow upon the earth.
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Neither shall he in anywise escape the darkness: Let the wind blast his blossom, And let his flower fall off.
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Let him not think that he shall endure; For his end shall be vanity.
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His harvest shall perish before the time, And his branch shall not flourish.
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And let him be gathered as the unripe grape before the time, And let him fall as the blossom of the olive.
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For death is the witness of an ungodly man, And fire shall burn the houses of them that receive gifts.
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And he shall conceive sorrows, And his end shall be vanity, And his belly shall bear deceit.