Job 4
1 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered Job.
Then Eliphaz the Temanite replied:
2 “Could I say a word? I don't want to upset you but who could keep quiet and not respond?
“If one ventures a word with you, will you be wearied? Yet who can keep from speaking?
3 You've certainly encouraged many people and supported those who are weak.
Surely you have instructed many, and have strengthened their feeble hands.
4 Your advice has helped those who are stumbling not to fall, and you have strengthened those whose knees are weak.
Your words have steadied those who stumbled; you have braced the knees that were buckling.
5 But now you're the one suffering and you're upset.
But now trouble has come upon you, and you are weary. It strikes you, and you are dismayed.
6 Wasn't it your reverence for God that gave you confidence and your integrity that gave you hope?
Is your reverence not your confidence, and the uprightness of your ways your hope?
7 Think about it: since when did the innocent die? Since when were good people destroyed?
Consider now, I plead: Who, being innocent, has ever perished? Or where have the upright been destroyed?
8 From what I've seen it's those who plant evil and sow trouble who reap the same!
As I have observed, those who plow iniquity and those who sow trouble reap the same.
9 A breath from God destroys them; a blast of his anger wipes them out.
By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of His anger they are consumed.
10 Lions may roar and growl, but their teeth still break.
The lion may roar, and the fierce lion may growl, yet the teeth of the young lions are broken.
11 Even a lion dies from lack of food, and the lioness' cubs are scattered.
The old lion perishes for lack of prey, and the cubs of the lioness are scattered.
12 A word quietly crept up on me; a whisper reached my ear.
Now a word came to me secretly; my ears caught a whisper of it.
13 Troubling thoughts came to me in nightmares when you fall into a deep sleep.
In disquieting visions in the night, when deep sleep falls on men,
14 I became terrified and trembled; all my bones were shaking.
fear and trembling came over me and made all my bones shudder.
15 Then a breath brushed my face and gave me goose-pimples.
Then a spirit glided past my face, and the hair on my body bristled.
16 Something stopped, but I couldn't see its face. My eyes could only make out a shape. It was totally quiet, and then I heard a voice:
It stood still, but I could not discern its appearance; a form loomed before my eyes, and I heard a whispering voice:
17 ‘Can anyone be right before God? Can anyone be pure before their Maker?
‘Can a mortal be more righteous than God, or a man more pure than his Maker?
18 If he doesn't even trust his servants, and he says his angels make mistakes,
If God puts no trust in His servants, and He charges His angels with error,
19 how much more does this apply to those who live in these houses made of clay, whose foundations are based on dust, who fall apart like clothing to a moth?
how much more those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundations are in the dust, who can be crushed like a moth!
20 Alive in the morning, they are dead by evening. They die, unnoticed.
They are smashed to pieces from dawn to dusk; unnoticed, they perish forever.
21 They are like tent ropes that are pulled up, and they collapse in death. They die without wisdom.’
Are not their tent cords pulled up, so that they die without wisdom?’
