Job 4

Eliphaz’s First Response to Job

4Then^a Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said,

²“If someone would test a word with you, would you be offended?

But^b who can refrain from speaking?

³Look, you have instructed many,

and you have strengthened weak hands.

⁴Your words have raised up the one who stumbles,

and you have strengthened knees giving way.

⁵But now it has come to you, and you are worn out;

it touches you, and you are horrified.

⁶Is not your fear in God your confidence?

Is not your hope even^c the integrity of your ways?

⁷“Think^d now, who has perished who is innocent?

Or^e where are the upright destroyed?

⁸Just as I have seen, plowers of mischief

and sowers of trouble will reap it.

⁹By^f the breath of God they perish,

and by^g the blast of his anger they come to an end.

¹⁰The roar of the lion and the voice of a lion in its prime,

and the teeth of the young lions are broken.

¹¹The lion is perishing without^h prey,

and the lion’s whelps are scattered.

¹²“And a word came stealing to me,

and my ear received the whisper from it.

¹³Amid troubling thoughts from night visions,

at the falling of deep sleep on men,

¹⁴dread met me, and trembling,

and it made many of my bones shake.

¹⁵And a spirit glided before my face;

the hair of my fleshⁱ bristled.

¹⁶It stood still, but^j I could not recognize its appearance;

a form was before^k my eyes;

there was a hush, and I heard a voice:

¹⁷‘Can a human being be more righteous than God,

or can a man be more pure than his Maker?

¹⁸Look, he does not trust in his servants

and he charges his angels with error.

¹⁹How much more dwellers in clay houses,

whose foundation is in the dust?

They are crushed like a moth.

²⁰Between morning and evening^l they are destroyed;

without anyone regarding it they perish forever.

²¹Is not their tent cord pulled up within them?

They die, but^m not inⁿ wisdom.’