Job 22

¹Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said:

² “Can a man be profitable to God?
Surely he who is wise is profitable to himself.

³Is it any pleasure to the Almighty if you are in the right,
or is it gain to him if you make your ways blameless?

⁴Is it for your fear of him that he reproves you
and enters into judgment with you?

⁵Is not your evil abundant?
There is no end to your iniquities.

⁶For you have exacted pledges of your brothers for nothing
and stripped the naked of their clothing.

⁷You 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.

⁹You have sent widows away empty,
and the arms of the fatherless were crushed.

¹⁰Therefore snares are all around you,
and sudden terror overwhelms you,

¹¹or 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!

¹³But 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.’

¹⁵Will you keep to the old way
that wicked men have trod?

¹⁶They were snatched away before their time;
their foundation was washed away.

¹⁷They said to God, ‘Depart from us,’
and ‘What can the Almighty do to us?’

¹⁸Yet he filled their houses with good things—
but the counsel of the wicked is far from me.

¹⁹ The righteous see it and are glad;
the innocent one mocks at them,

²⁰saying, ‘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.

²²Receive instruction from his mouth,
and lay up his words in your heart.

²³If you return to the Almighty you will be built up;
if you remove injustice far from your tents,

²⁴if you lay gold in the dust,
and gold of Ophir among the stones of the torrent-bed,

²⁵then the Almighty will be your gold
and your precious silver.

²⁶For then you will delight yourself in the Almighty
and lift up your face to God.

²⁷You will make your prayer to him, and he will hear you,
and you will pay your vows.

²⁸You will decide on a matter, and it will be established for you,
and light will shine on your ways.

²⁹For when they are humbled you say, ‘It is because of pride’;
but he saves the lowly.

³⁰He delivers even the one who is not innocent,
who will be delivered through the cleanness of your hands.”

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