Job

Chapter 15

Eliphaz: Job Does Not Fear God

Eliphaz answers again with sharper suspicion, treating Job's words not as grief but as evidence that he has cast off the fear of God and spoken out of guilt. He argues that no human being can be pure before God, then unfolds a long picture of the wicked person's terror, collapse, and barrenness, making clear that he now reads Job's life through that pattern.

This chapter restarts the dispute after Job's appeal to frailty and mortality by hardening the friends' interpretation rather than softening it. Eliphaz no longer sounds merely corrective; he sounds accusatory, turning Job's speech itself into proof that he belongs among the wicked whose end he describes.

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Job 15

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vv. 1-35

Eliphaz: Job Does Not Fear God

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T¹hen Eliphaz the Temanite replied: ²“Does a wise man answer with empty counsel ³Should he argue with useless words ⁴But you even undermine the fear of God ⁵For your iniquity instructs your mouth, ⁶Your own mouth, not mine, condemns you;

⁷Were you the first man ever born? ⁸Do you listen in on the council of God ⁹What do you know that we do not? ¹⁰Both the gray-haired and the aged are on our side — ¹¹Are the consolations of God not enough for you, ¹²Why has your heart carried you away, ¹³so that you turn your spirit against God ¹⁴What is man, that he should be pure, ¹⁵If God puts no trust in His holy ones, ¹⁶how much less man, who is vile and corrupt,

¹⁷Listen to me and I will inform you. ¹⁸what was declared by wise men ¹⁹to whom alone the land was given

²⁰A wicked man writhes in pain all his days; ²¹Sounds of terror fill his ears; ²²He despairs of his return from darkness; ²³He wanders about as food for vultures; ²⁴Distress and anguish terrify him, ²⁵For he has stretched out his hand against God ²⁶rushing headlong at Him ²⁷Though his face is covered with fat ²⁸he will dwell in ruined cities, ²⁹He will no longer be rich; his wealth will not endure. ³⁰He will not escape from the darkness; ³¹Let him not deceive himself with trust in emptiness, ³²It will be paid in full before his time, ³³He will be like a vine stripped of its unripe grapes, ³⁴For the company of the godless will be barren, ³⁵They conceive trouble and give birth to evil;

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01vv. 1-35Eliphaz: Job Does Not Fear GodEliphaz mocks Job's words as empty and harmful, says that speaking this way undermines reverence before God, and insists that no human being is clean enough to challenge divine judgment. He then appeals to inherited wisdom and gives a sustained portrait of the wicked person as inwardly tormented, outwardly unstable, and finally unfruitful, implying that Job's suffering belongs inside that same pattern.