Job 4:12–5:7

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.