Job 4

¹Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said :

²If one ventures a word with you, will you be impatient ? Yet who can keep from speaking ?

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

⁴Your words have upheld him who was stumbling , and you have made firm the feeble knees .

⁵But now it has come to you, and you are impatient ; it touches you, and you are dismayed .

⁶Is not your fear of God your confidence , and the integrity of your ways your hope ?

⁷Remember : who that was innocent ever perished ? Or where were the upright cut off ?

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

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

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

¹¹The strong lion perishes for lack of prey , and the cubs of the lioness are scattered .

¹²Now a word was brought to me stealthily ; my ear received the whisper of it.

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

¹⁴dread came upon me, and trembling , which made all my bones shake .

¹⁵A spirit glided past my face ; the hair of my flesh stood up .

¹⁶It stood still , but I could not discern its appearance . A form was before my eyes ; there was silence , then I heard a voice :

¹⁷Can mortal man be in the right before God ? Can a man be pure before his Maker ?

¹⁸Even in his servants he puts no trust , and his angels he charges with error ;

¹⁹how much more those who dwell in houses of clay , whose foundation is in the dust , who are crushed like the moth .

²⁰Between morning and evening they are beaten to pieces ; they perish forever without anyone regarding it.

²¹Is not their tent-cord plucked up within them, do they not die , and that without wisdom ?