Eliphaz accuses Job of wickedness
1
Then Eliphaz replied, saying this:
2
“No one can be useful to God! People who are wise can be useful to themselves, but not to God.
3
If you were righteous, that would not please God Almighty, would it? If you lived a perfect life, that would not help him, would it?
4
Do you honor God, and is that why he punishes you? Is that the reason that he puts you on trial?
5
No, it certainly must be because you are extremely wicked. It must be that no one can count the evil things that you have done!
6
You must have lent money to others and wrongly forced them to give you things to guarantee that they would pay that money back to you; you must have taken all their clothes and left them with nothing to wear.
7
You must not have given water to those who were thirsty, and you must have refused to give food to those who were hungry.
8
Because you were very powerful, you must have taken over all the people’s land, and then you began to live on that land, even though others honored you very much.
9
When widows came to you for help, you must have sent them away without giving them anything, and you must have oppressed orphans.
10
Because you did all those things, now there are traps that will catch you; now things appear that terrify you and cause you to tremble.
11
It is as though it had become very dark, with the result that you cannot see anything, and it is as though a flood covered you.
12
But consider this, Job: God lives high up in the heavens. From there he looks down on the highest stars.
13
So why do you say, ‘God knows nothing about what we are doing’? And why do you say, ‘Dark clouds keep him from seeing us, so he cannot judge us’?
14
Do you think that while he walks on the dome that covers the sky, where there are thick clouds around him, he cannot see what we do?’
15
Will you, Job, continue to conduct your life in the old way that evil people have done for many years?
16
They suddenly died while they were still young; they disappeared like everything disappears when there is a flood.
17
They kept saying to God, ‘Leave us alone,’ ‘Allow us to be alone,’ and they also said defiantly, ‘God Almighty can do nothing to harm us!’
18
Yet it was God who filled their houses with good things; so I cannot agree at all to follow what the wicked plan.
19
When righteous people see that God punishes wicked people, they are glad, and they laugh at those wicked people.
20
They say, ’Now our enemies have been destroyed, and fire has burned up anything left of their wealth.’
21
So, Job, be reconciled to God and make peace with him; if you do that, good things will happen to you.
22
Allow him to teach you, and put his words into your mind.
23
If you humble yourself and return to God, he will restore you; if you stop doing all the evil things that you have been doing in your house,
24
and if you throw away your gold, the fine gold from the dry stream beds in Ophir land,
25
then God Almighty will be as precious to you as your gold and your silver have been.
26
Then you will be happy because of God, and you will be able to approach him confidently.
27
You will pray to him, and he will do what you request him to do; you will do the things that you promised him that you would do.
28
Everything that you decide to do will be successful; it will be as though a light were shining on the road in front of you.
29
God humbles those who are proud, but he saves those who are downcast.
30
God rescues those who are not innocent; they will be rescued because you do what is right.”
Copyright © Door43 - licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0