Job 4

First Series of Speeches

Eliphaz Speaks

4Then Eliphaz the Temanite replied:

²Should anyone try to speak with you

when you are exhausted?

Yet who can keep from speaking?

³Indeed, you have instructed many

and have strengthened ^uweak hands.

⁴Your words have steadied the one who was stumbling

and braced the knees that were buckling. ^v

⁵But now that this has happened to you,

you have become exhausted.

It strikes ^wyou, and you are dismayed.

⁶Isn’t your piety your confidence,

and the integrity of your life ^xyour hope? ^y

⁷Consider: who has perished when he was innocent?

Where have the honest been destroyed? ^z

⁸In my experience, those who plow injustice

and those who sow trouble ^areap the same. ^b

⁹They perish at a single blast ^cfrom God

and come to an end by the breath of His nostrils. ^d

¹⁰The lion may roar and the fierce lion ^egrowl,

but the fangs of young lions are broken. ^f

¹¹The strong lion dies if it catches no prey,

and the cubs of the lioness are scattered. ^g

¹²A word was brought to me in secret;

my ears caught a whisper of it. ^h

¹³Among unsettling thoughts from visions in the night, ⁱ

when deep sleep ^jdescends on men,

¹⁴fear and trembling came over me ^k

and made all my bones shake.

¹⁵A wind ^lpassed by me,

and I shuddered with fear. ^m

¹⁶A figure stood there,

but I could not recognize its appearance;

a form loomed before my eyes.

I heard a quiet voice:

¹⁷“Can a person be more righteous than God,

or a man more pure than his Maker?” ⁿ

¹⁸If God puts no trust in His servants

and He charges His angels with foolishness, ^op

¹⁹how much more those who dwell in clay houses, ^q

whose foundation is in the dust,

who are crushed like a moth!

²⁰They are smashed to pieces from dawn to dusk;

they perish forever while no one notices. ^r

²¹Are their tent cords not pulled up?

They die without wisdom. ^s