Job 4

Eliphaz

4Then Eliphaz the Temanite^o replied:

²“If someone ventures a word with you, will you be impatient?

But who can keep from speaking?^p

³Think how you have instructed many,^q

how you have strengthened feeble hands.^r

⁴Your words have supported those who stumbled;^s

you have strengthened faltering knees.^t

⁵But now trouble comes to you, and you are discouraged;^u

it strikes^v you, and you are dismayed.^w

⁶Should not your piety be your confidence^x

and your blameless^y ways your hope?

⁷“Consider now: Who, being innocent, has ever perished?^z

Where were the upright ever destroyed?^a

⁸As I have observed,^b those who plow evil^c

and those who sow trouble reap it.^d

⁹At the breath of God^e they perish;

at the blast of his anger they are no more.^f

¹⁰The lions may roar^g and growl,

yet the teeth of the great lions^h are broken.ⁱ

¹¹The lion perishes for lack of prey,^j

and the cubs of the lioness are scattered.^k

¹²“A word^l was secretly brought to me,

my ears caught a whisper^m of it.ⁿ

¹³Amid disquieting dreams in the night,

when deep sleep falls on people,^o

¹⁴fear and trembling^p seized me

and made all my bones shake.^q

¹⁵A spirit glided past my face,

and the hair on my body stood on end.^r

¹⁶It stopped,

but I could not tell what it was.

A form stood before my eyes,

and I heard a hushed voice:^s

¹⁷‘Can a mortal be more righteous than God?^t

Can even a strong man be more pure than his Maker?^u

¹⁸If God places no trust in his servants,^v

if he charges his angels with error,^w

¹⁹how much more those who live in houses of clay,^x

whose foundations^y are in the dust,^z

who are crushed^a more readily than a moth!^b

²⁰Between dawn and dusk they are broken to pieces;

unnoticed, they perish forever.^c

²¹Are not the cords of their tent pulled up,^d

so that they die^e without wisdom?’^f