Job 4
1 Then Eliphaz, from Teman, replied to Job. He said,
Then Eliphaz the Temanite replied:
2 “Will you please let me say something to you? I am not [RHQ] able to remain silent [any longer].
“If one ventures a word with you, will you be wearied? Yet who can keep from speaking?
3 In the past, you have instructed/taught many people, and you have encouraged those who were weak.
Surely you have instructed many, and have strengthened their feeble hands.
4 By what you said, you have helped those who (needed spiritual help/almost quit trusting in God) [MET], and you have enabled them to become spiritually strong again [MET].
Your words have steadied those who stumbled; you have braced the knees that were buckling.
5 But now, when you experience disasters, you become discouraged. The disasters hit you, and you are stunned.
But now trouble has come upon you, and you are weary. It strikes you, and you are dismayed.
6 You revere God; (does that not cause you to trust [in him]?/that should cause you to trust [in him].) [RHQ] If you were guiltless, you would [RHQ] be confident that [God] would not [have allowed] these disasters [to] happen to you!
Is your reverence not your confidence, and the uprightness of your ways your hope?
7 Think about this: Do innocent people die [while they are still young] [RHQ]? Does God get rid of godly people [RHQ]? [No!]
Consider now, I plead: Who, being innocent, has ever perished? Or where have the upright been destroyed?
8 What I have experienced is this: [Just as] [MET] farmers who plant bad [seeds] do not harvest good [crops], [just as those who start] trouble for others, later bring trouble on themselves.
As I have observed, those who plow iniquity and those who sow trouble reap the same.
9 They die when God angrily blows his breath on them, when he is very angry with them.
By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of His anger they are consumed.
10 [Even though wicked people may be very powerful like] young lions, [God] will get rid of them [MET].
The lion may roar, and the fierce lion may growl, yet the teeth of the young lions are broken.
11 [They will die like] fierce lions [that] starve to death when there are no animals that they can kill and eat, and [their children will be separated from each other like] young lions separate from each other [to find food].”
The old lion perishes for lack of prey, and the cubs of the lioness are scattered.
12 “I heard a message that someone came and whispered to me.
Now a word came to me secretly; my ears caught a whisper of it.
13 He spoke to me at night when I was having a bad dream that disturbed/frightened me while I was fast asleep.
In disquieting visions in the night, when deep sleep falls on men,
14 It caused me to be afraid and tremble; it caused all my bones to shake.
fear and trembling came over me and made all my bones shudder.
15 A ghost glided past my face and caused the hair on [on the back of] my neck to stand straight up.
Then a spirit glided past my face, and the hair on my body bristled.
16 It stopped, but I could not see what form it had. But [I could sense that] there was some being in front of me, and it said in a quiet voice,
It stood still, but I could not discern its appearance; a form loomed before my eyes, and I heard a whispering voice:
17 ‘(Does God consider anyone to be righteous?/No human beings can be righteous in God’s sight!) [RHQ] (Their creator cannot consider them to be pure./Can their creator consider them to be pure?) [RHQ]
‘Can a mortal be more righteous than God, or a man more pure than his Maker?
18 God cannot be sure that his own angels [will always do what is right]; he declares that some of them have done what is wrong.
If God puts no trust in His servants, and He charges His angels with error,
19 So he certainly cannot trust human beings who were made from dust and clay, who are crushed as easily as moths are crushed!
how much more those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundations are in the dust, who can be crushed like a moth!
20 People are sometimes well in the morning, but in the evening they are dead. They are gone forever and do not even know it (OR, and no one pays any attention to it).
They are smashed to pieces from dawn to dusk; unnoticed, they perish forever.
21 They are like [MET] tents that collapse [suddenly]: They die [suddenly] before they become wise.’”
Are not their tent cords pulled up, so that they die without wisdom?’
