Job 4–5

Chapter 4

Eliphaz’s First Response to Job

Then Eliphaz the Temanite replied to Job:

²“Will you be patient and let me say a word?

For who could keep from speaking out?

³“In the past you have encouraged many people;

you have strengthened those who were weak.

⁴Your words have supported those who were falling;

you encouraged those with shaky knees.

⁵But now when trouble strikes, you lose heart.

You are terrified when it touches you.

⁶Doesn’t your reverence for God give you confidence?

Doesn’t your life of integrity give you hope?

⁷“Stop and think! Do the innocent die?

When have the upright been destroyed?

⁸My experience shows that those who plant trouble

and cultivate evil will harvest the same.

⁹A breath from God destroys them.

They vanish in a blast of his anger.

¹⁰The lion roars and the wildcat snarls,

but the teeth of strong lions will be broken.

¹¹The fierce lion will starve for lack of prey,

and the cubs of the lioness will be scattered.

¹²“This truth was given to me in secret,

as though whispered in my ear.

¹³It came to me in a disturbing vision at night,

when people are in a deep sleep.

¹⁴Fear gripped me,

and my bones trembled.

¹⁵A spirit swept past my face,

and my hair stood on end.

¹⁶The spirit stopped, but I couldn’t see its shape.

There was a form before my eyes.

In the silence I heard a voice say,

¹⁷‘Can a mortal be innocent before God?

Can anyone be pure before the Creator?’

¹⁸“If God does not trust his own angels

and has charged his messengers with foolishness,

¹⁹how much less will he trust people made of clay!

They are made of dust, crushed as easily as a moth.

²⁰They are alive in the morning but dead by evening,

gone forever without a trace.

²¹Their tent-cords are pulled and the tent collapses,

and they die in ignorance.

Chapter 5

Eliphaz’s Response Continues

¹“Cry for help, but will anyone answer you?

Which of the angels will help you?

²Surely resentment destroys the fool,

and jealousy kills the simple.

³I have seen that fools may be successful for the moment,

but then comes sudden disaster.

⁴Their children are abandoned far from help;

they are crushed in court with no one to defend them.

⁵The hungry devour their harvest,

even when it is guarded by brambles.

The thirsty pant after their wealth.

⁶But evil does not spring from the soil,

and trouble does not sprout from the earth.

⁷People are born for trouble

as readily as sparks fly up from a fire.

⁸“If I were you, I would go to God

and present my case to him.

⁹He does great things too marvelous to understand.

He performs countless miracles.

¹⁰He gives rain for the earth

and water for the fields.

¹¹He gives prosperity to the poor

and protects those who suffer.

¹²He frustrates the plans of schemers

so the work of their hands will not succeed.

¹³He traps the wise in their own cleverness

so their cunning schemes are thwarted.

¹⁴They find it is dark in the daytime,

and they grope at noon as if it were night.

¹⁵He rescues the poor from the cutting words of the strong,

and rescues them from the clutches of the powerful.

¹⁶And so at last the poor have hope,

and the snapping jaws of the wicked are shut.

¹⁷“But consider the joy of those corrected by God!

Do not despise the discipline of the Almighty when you sin.

¹⁸For though he wounds, he also bandages.

He strikes, but his hands also heal.

¹⁹From six disasters he will rescue you;

even in the seventh, he will keep you from evil.

²⁰He will save you from death in time of famine,

from the power of the sword in time of war.

²¹You will be safe from slander

and have no fear when destruction comes.

²²You will laugh at destruction and famine;

wild animals will not terrify you.

²³You will be at peace with the stones of the field,

and its wild animals will be at peace with you.

²⁴You will know that your home is safe.

When you survey your possessions, nothing will be missing.

²⁵You will have many children;

your descendants will be as plentiful as grass!

²⁶You will go to the grave at a ripe old age,

like a sheaf of grain harvested at the proper time!

²⁷“We have studied life and found all this to be true.

Listen to my counsel, and apply it to yourself.”