Job - Chapter 22 | English Standard Version

  • 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-- 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."
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