Bible Strands
Job 15:5
For your iniquity instructs your mouth, and you choose the language of the crafty.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Eliphaz addresses Job during a formal theological exchange concerning suffering and divine justice. The dialogue occurs in a sequence where Eliphaz charges Job with eroding reverence for God and disrupting spiritual reflection.
The words — The Hebrew יְאַלֵּף (ye'alep) literally means "it teaches," and עֲרוּמִים ('arumim) translates to "crafty people." The text states that personal iniquity actively instructs the speaker's mouth and dictates his chosen speech.
The thread — This link between moral failure and corrupt speech appears in Psalms 50:19 and Jeremiah 9:3, where unbridled tongues produce deceit and escalate evil. James 1:26 later reinforces the pattern by equating an unbridled tongue with worthless religious practice.
Why it lands — The verse requires the reader to trace deceptive speech back to its moral source rather than treating words as isolated errors. It demands honest self-assessment, recognizing that unchecked iniquity inevitably shapes how one communicates.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
For thy mouth uttereth thine iniquity, and thou choosest the tongue of the crafty.
Cross-references
- Jeremiah 9:3 “They bend their tongues like bows; lies prevail over truth in the land. For they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not take Me into account,” declares the LORD.
- James 1:26 If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not bridle his tongue, he deceives his heart and his religion is worthless.
- Psalms 50:19 You unleash your mouth for evil and harness your tongue to deceit.
- Psalms 52:2 Your tongue devises destruction like a sharpened razor, O worker of deceit.
- Jeremiah 9:8 Their tongues are deadly arrows; they speak deception. With his mouth a man speaks peace to his neighbor, but in his heart he sets a trap for him.
- Luke 6:45 The good man brings good things out of the good treasure of his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil treasure of his heart. For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.
- James 3:5 In the same way, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it boasts of great things. Consider how small a spark sets a great forest ablaze.
- Job 5:13 He catches the wise in their craftiness, and sweeps away the plans of the cunning.
- Job 9:22 It is all the same, and so I say, ‘He destroys both the blameless and the wicked.’
- Psalms 64:3 who sharpen their tongues like swords and aim their bitter words like arrows,