A reading from the book of Job.

Then Elifaz the Pimanite answered and said,

Should a wise man answer with windy knowledge, and fill his belly with the east wind?

Should he argue in unprofitable talk or in words with which he can do no good?

But you are doing away with the fear of God

and hindering meditation before God. For your iniquity teaches your mouth, and you choose the tongue

of the crafty. Your own mouth condemns you and not I. Your own lips testify against you. Are you the first man who was

born, or were you brought forth before the hills? Have you listened in the counsel of God,

and do you limit wisdom to yourself? What do you know that we do not know? What do you understand that is not clear to us? Both the

gray-haired and the aged are among us, older than your father. Are the comforts of God too small for you,

or the word that deals gently with you? Why does your heart carry you away, and why do your eyes flash that you turn

your spirit against God and bring such words out of your mouth? What is man that he can be pure,

or he who is born of a woman that he can be righteous? Behold, God puts no trust in his holy ones, and the heavens are not pure in his sight. How much

less one who is abominable and corrupt, a man who drinks injustice like water. I will show you,

hear me, and what I have seen I will declare, what wise men have told without hiding it from their fathers,

to whom alone the land was given, and no stranger passed among them.

The wicked man writhes in pain all his days, through all the years that are laid up for the ruthless.

Dreadful sounds are in his ears.

In prosperity the destroyer will come upon him.

He does not believe that he will return out of darkness, and he is marked for the sword.

He wanders abroad for bread, saying, where is it?

He knows that a day of darkness is ready at his hand. Distress and anguish

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