Job 4

¹Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered,

²“If someone ventures to talk with you, will you be grieved? But who can withhold himself from speaking?

³Behold, you have instructed many, you have strengthened the weak hands.

⁴Your words have supported him who was falling, you have made the feeble knees firm.

⁵But now it has come to you, and you faint. It touches you, and you are troubled.

⁶Isn’t your piety your confidence? Isn’t the integrity of your ways your hope?

⁷“Remember, now, who ever perished, being innocent? Or where were the upright cut off?

⁸According to what I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble, reap the same.

⁹By the breath of God they perish. By the blast of his anger are they consumed.

¹⁰The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the fierce lion, the teeth of the young lions, are broken.

¹¹The old lion perishes for lack of prey. The cubs of the lioness are scattered abroad.

¹²“Now a thing was secretly brought to me. My ear received a whisper of it.

¹³In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on men,

¹⁴fear came on me, and trembling, which made all my bones shake.

¹⁵Then a spirit passed before my face. The hair of my flesh stood up.

¹⁶It stood still, but I couldn’t discern its appearance. A form was before my eyes. Silence, then I heard a voice, saying,

¹⁷‘Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure than his Maker?

¹⁸Behold, he puts no trust in his servants. He charges his angels with error.

¹⁹How much more those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed before the moth!

²⁰Between morning and evening they are destroyed. They perish forever without any regarding it.

²¹Isn’t their tent cord plucked up within them? They die, and that without wisdom.’