Job 4

Eliphaz Speaks: The Innocent Prosper

¹Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said:

²“If 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?

⁷“Remember: 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.

¹²“Now a word was brought to me stealthily;

my ear received the whisper of it.

¹³Amid thoughts 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:

¹⁷‘Can 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?’