First Series of Speeches

Eliphaz Speaks

4 Then Eliphaz the Temanite replied:

2 Should anyone try to speak with you

when you are exhausted?

Yet who can keep from speaking?

3 Indeed, you have instructed many

and have strengthened u weak hands.

4 Your words have steadied the one who was stumbling

and braced the knees that were buckling. v

5 But now that this has happened to you,

you have become exhausted.

It strikes w you, and you are dismayed.

6 Isn’t your piety your confidence,

and the integrity of your life x your hope? y

7 Consider: who has perished when he was innocent?

Where have the honest been destroyed? z

8 In my experience, those who plow injustice

and those who sow trouble a reap the same. b

9 They perish at a single blast c from God

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

10 The lion may roar and the fierce lion e growl,

but the fangs of young lions are broken. f

11 The strong lion dies if it catches no prey,

and the cubs of the lioness are scattered. g

12 A word was brought to me in secret;

my ears caught a whisper of it. h

13 Among unsettling thoughts from visions in the night, i

when deep sleep j descends on men,

14 fear and trembling came over me k

and made all my bones shake.

15 A wind l passed by me,

and I shuddered with fear. m

16 A 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

18 If God puts no trust in His servants

and He charges His angels with foolishness, o p

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

whose foundation is in the dust,

who are crushed like a moth!

20 They are smashed to pieces from dawn to dusk;

they perish forever while no one notices. r

21 Are their tent cords not pulled up?

They die without wisdom. s