Job 4

¹ Then spoke Eliphaz the Temanite, who said:

² If someone attempts a word with you, will you mind? For how can anyone refrain from speaking?

³ Behold, you have instructed many, and have made firm their feeble hands.

⁴ Your words have upheld the stumbler; you have strengthened his faltering knees.

⁵ But now that it comes to you, you are impatient; when it touches yourself, you are dismayed.

⁶ Is not your piety a source of confidence, and your integrity of life your hope?

⁷ Reflect now, what innocent person perishes? Since when are the upright destroyed?

⁸ As I see it, those who plow for mischief and sow trouble, reap the same.

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

¹⁰ Though the lion roars, though the king of beasts cries out, yet the teeth of the young lions are broken;

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

¹² For a word was stealthily brought to me, and my ear caught a whisper of it.

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

¹⁴ Fear came upon me, and shuddering, that terrified me to the bones.

¹⁵ Then a spirit passed before me, and the hair of my flesh stood up.

¹⁶ It paused, but its likeness I could not discern; a figure was before my eyes, and I heard a still voice:

¹⁷ "Can a man be righteous as against God? Can a mortal be blameless against his Maker?

¹⁸ Lo, he puts no trust in his servants, and with his angels he can find fault.

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

²⁰ Morning or evening they may be shattered; with no heed paid to it, they perish forever.

²¹ The pegs of their tent are plucked up; they die without knowing wisdom."