Eliphaz Begins to Speak

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

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