Job 22.21
English standard version

Intervention n° 3 d’Éliphaz

¹ Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said:
² Can a man be profitable to God?
Surely he who is wise is profitable to himself.
³ Is it any pleasure to the Almighty if you are in the right,
or is it gain to him if you make your ways blameless?
⁴ Is it for your fear of him that he reproves you
and enters into judgment with you?
⁵ Is not your evil abundant?
There is no end to your iniquities.
⁶ For you have exacted pledges of your brothers for nothing
and stripped the naked of their clothing.
⁷ You have given no water to the weary to drink,
and you have withheld bread from the hungry.
⁸ The man with power possessed the land,
and the favored man lived in it.
⁹ You have sent widows away empty,
and the arms of the fatherless were crushed.
¹⁰ Therefore snares are all around you,
and sudden terror overwhelms you,
¹¹ or darkness, so that you cannot see,
and a flood of water covers you.
¹² Is not God high in the heavens?
See the highest stars, how lofty they are!
¹³ But you say, What does God know?
Can he judge through the deep darkness?
¹⁴ Thick clouds veil him, so that he does not see,
and he walks on the vault of heaven.
¹⁵ Will you keep to the old way
that wicked men have trod?
¹⁶ They were snatched away before their time;
their foundation was washed away.
¹⁷ They said to God, Depart from us,
and What can the Almighty do to us?
¹⁸ Yet he filled their houses with good things&emdash;
but the counsel of the wicked is far from me.
¹⁹ The righteous see it and are glad;
the innocent one mocks at them,
²⁰ saying, Surely our adversaries are cut off,
and what they left the fire has consumed.
²¹ Agree with God, and be at peace;
thereby good will come to you.
²² Receive instruction from his mouth,
and lay up his words in your heart.
²³ If you return to the Almighty you will be built up;
if you remove injustice far from your tents,
²⁴ if you lay gold in the dust,
and gold of Ophir among the stones of the torrent-bed,
²⁵ then the Almighty will be your gold
and your precious silver.
²⁶ For then you will delight yourself in the Almighty
and lift up your face to God.
²⁷ You will make your prayer to him, and he will hear you,
and you will pay your vows.
²⁸ You will decide on a matter, and it will be established for you,
and light will shine on your ways.
²⁹ For when they are humbled you say, It is because of pride;
but he saves the lowly.
³⁰ He delivers even the one who is not innocent,
who will be delivered through the cleanness of your hands.