4
1 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered:
2 “If someone should attempt a word with you,
will you be impatient?
But who can refrain from speaking ?
3 Look, you have instructed many;
you have strengthened feeble hands.
4 Your words have supported those
who stumbled,
and you have strengthened the knees
that gave way.
5 But now the same thing comes to you,
and you are discouraged;
it strikes you,
and you are terrified.
6 Is not your piety your confidence,
and your blameless ways your hope?
7 Call to mind now:
Who, being innocent, ever perished?
And where were upright people ever destroyed?
8 Even as I have seen, those who plow iniquity
and those who sow trouble reap the same.
9 By the breath of God they perish,
and by the blast of his anger they are consumed.
10 There is the roaring of the lion
and the growling of the young lion,
but the teeth of the young lions are broken.
11 The mighty lion perishes for lack of prey,
and the cubs of the lioness are scattered.
Ungodly Complainers Provoke God’s Wrath
12 “Now a word was secretly brought to me,
and my ear caught a whisper of it.
13 In the troubling thoughts of the dreams in the night
when a deep sleep falls on men,
14 a trembling gripped me – and a terror! –
and made all my bones shake.
15 Then a breath of air passes by my face;
it makes the hair of my flesh stand up.
16 It stands still,
but I cannot recognize its appearance;
an image is before my eyes,
and I hear a murmuring voice:
17 “Is a mortal man righteous before God?
Or a man pure before his Creator?
18 If God puts no trust in his servants
and attributes folly to his angels,
19 how much more to those who live in houses of clay,
whose foundation is in the dust,
who are crushed like a moth?
20 They are destroyed between morning and evening;
they perish forever without anyone regarding it.
21 Is not their excess wealth taken away from them?
They die, yet without attaining wisdom.