Job 4

1 Then Eliphaz the Thaemanite answered and said,

2 Hast you been often spoken to in distress? but who shall endure the force of your words?

3 For whereas you have instructed many, and have strengthened the hands of the weak one,

4 and have supported the failing with words, and have imparted courage to feeble knees.

5 Yet now [that] pain has come upon you, and touched you, you are troubled.

6 Is not your fear [founded] in folly, your hope also, and the mischief of your way?

7 Remember then who has perished, being pure? or when were the true-hearted utterly destroyed?

8 Accordingly as I have seen men ploughing barren places, and they that sow them will reap sorrows for themselves.

9 They shall perish by the command of the Lord, and shall be utterly consumed by the breath of his wrath.

10 The strength of the lion, and the voice of the lioness, and the exulting cry of serpents are quenched.

11 The old lion has perished for lack of food, and the lions' whelps have forsaken one another.

12 But if there had been any truth in your words, none of these evils would have befallen you. Shall not mine ear receive excellent [revelations] from him?

13 But [as when] terror falls upon men, with dread and a sound in the night,

14 horror and trembling seized me, and caused all my bones greatly to shake.

15 And a spirit came before my face; and my hair and flesh quivered.

16 I arose and perceived it not: I looked, and there, was no form before my eyes: but I only heard a breath and a voice, [saying],

17 What, shall a mortal be pure before the Lord? or a man be blameless in regard to his works?

18 Whereas he trust not in his servants, and perceives perverseness in his angels.

19 But [as for] them that dwell in houses of clay, of whom we also are formed of the same clay, he smites them like a moth.

20 And from the morning to evening they no longer exist: they have perished, because they can’t help themselves.

21 For he blows upon them, and they are withered: they have perished for lack of wisdom.