Job 4

Eliphaz Speaks: The Innocent Prosper

1 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said:

2  “If one ventures a word with you, will you be impatient?
Yet who can keep from speaking?
 3 Behold, you have instructed many,
and you have a strengthened the weak hands.
 4 Your words have upheld him who was stumbling,
and you have b made firm the feeble knees.
 5 But now it has come to you, and you are impatient;
it touches you, and you are dismayed.
 6  c Is not your fear of God ▼
▼ Hebrew lacks  of God
 your e confidence,
and the integrity of your ways your hope?
 7  “Remember: f who that was innocent ever perished?
Or where were the upright cut off?
 8 As I have seen, those who g plow iniquity
and sow trouble reap the same.
 9 By h the breath of God they perish,
and by i the blast of his anger they are consumed.
 10 The roar of the lion, the voice of the fierce lion,
j the teeth of the young lions are broken.
 11 The strong lion perishes for lack of prey,
and the cubs of the lioness are scattered.
 12  “Now a word was brought to me stealthily;
my ear received k the whisper of it.
 13 Amid l thoughts from m visions of the night,
when n deep sleep falls on men,
 14 dread came upon me, and trembling,
which made all my bones shake.
 15 A spirit glided past my face;
the hair of my flesh stood up.
 16 It stood still,
but I could not discern its appearance.
o A form was before my eyes;
there was silence, then I heard p a voice:
 17  q ‘Can mortal man be in the right before ▼
▼ Or more than; twice in this verse
 God?
Can a man be pure before his Maker?
 18 Even in his servants s he puts no trust,
and his angels he charges with error;
 19 how much more those who dwell in houses of t clay,
whose foundation is in u the dust,
who are crushed like v the moth.
 20 Between w morning and evening they are beaten to pieces;
they perish forever x without anyone regarding it.
 21 Is not their tent-cord plucked up within them,
y do they not die, and that without wisdom?’
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