Job 4 / 42
- 1
(Eliphaz Speaks: The Innocent Prosper)
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 strengthened the weak hands.
- 4
Your words have upheld him who was stumbling,
and you have 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
Is not your fear of God your confidence,
and the integrity of your ways your hope?
- 7
"Remember: who that was innocent ever perished?
Or where were the upright cut off?
- 8
As I have seen, those who plow iniquity
and sow trouble reap the same.
- 9
By the breath of God they perish,
and by the blast of his anger they are consumed.
- 10
The roar of the lion, the voice of the fierce lion,
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 the whisper of it.
- 13
Amid thoughts from visions of the night,
when 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.
A form was before my eyes;
there was silence, then I heard a voice:
- 17
'Can mortal man be in the right before God?
Can a man be pure before his Maker?
- 18
Even in his servants he puts no trust,
and his angels he charges with error;
- 19
how much more those who dwell in houses of clay,
whose foundation is in the dust,
who are crushed like the moth.
- 20
Between morning and evening they are beaten to pieces;
they perish forever without anyone regarding it.
- 21
Is not their tent-cord plucked up within them,
do they not die, and that without wisdom?'