Job 4

¹ Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered,

² “If someone ventures to talk with you, will you be grieved? But who can withhold himself from speaking?

³ Behold, you have instructed many, you have strengthened the weak hands.

⁴ Your words have supported him who was falling, you have made the feeble knees firm.

⁵ But now it has come to you, and you faint. It touches you, and you are troubled.

⁶ Isn’t your piety your confidence? Isn’t the integrity of your ways your hope?

⁷ “Remember, now, who ever perished, being innocent? Or where were the upright cut off?

⁸ According to what I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble, reap the same.

⁹ By the breath of God they perish. By the blast of his anger are they consumed.

¹⁰ The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the fierce lion, the teeth of the young lions, are broken.

¹¹ The old lion perishes for lack of prey. The cubs of the lioness are scattered abroad.

¹² “Now a thing was secretly brought to me. My ear received a whisper of it.

¹³ In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on men,

¹⁴ fear came on me, and trembling, which made all my bones shake.

¹⁵ Then a spirit passed before my face. The hair of my flesh stood up.

¹⁶ It stood still, but I couldn’t discern its appearance. A form was before my eyes. Silence, then I heard a voice, saying,

¹⁷ ‘Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure than his Maker?

¹⁸ Behold, he puts no trust in his servants. He charges his angels with error.

¹⁹ How much more those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed before the moth!

²⁰ Between morning and evening they are destroyed. They perish forever without any regarding it.

²¹ Isn’t their tent cord plucked up within them? They die, and that without wisdom.’