Eliphaz’s First Response to Job

4 Then[fn] Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said,

• 2 “If someone would test a word with you, would you be offended? But[fn] who can refrain from speaking?
• 3 Look, you have instructed many, and you have strengthened weak hands.
• 4 Your words have raised up the one who stumbles, and you have strengthened knees giving way.
• 5 But now it has come to you, and you are worn out; it touches you, and you are horrified.
• 6 Is not your fear in God your confidence? Is not your hope even[fn] the integrity of your ways?
• 7 “Think[fn] now, who has perished who is innocent? Or[fn] where are the upright destroyed?
• 8 Just as I have seen, plowers of mischief and sowers of trouble will reap it.
• 9 By[fn] the breath of God they perish, and by[fn] the blast of his anger they come to an end.
• 10 The roar of the lion and the voice of a lion in its prime, and the teeth of the young lions are broken.
• 11 The lion is perishing without[fn] prey, and the lion’s whelps are scattered.
• 12 “And a word came stealing to me, and my ear received the whisper from it.
• 13 Amid troubling thoughts from night visions, at the falling of deep sleep on men,
• 14 dread met me, and trembling, and it made many of my bones shake.
• 15 And a spirit glided before my face; the hair of my flesh[fn] bristled.
• 16 It stood still, but[fn] I could not recognize its appearance; a form was before[fn] my eyes;
• there was a hush, and I heard a voice:
• 17 ‘Can a human being be more righteous than God, or can a man be more pure than his Maker?
• 18 Look, he does not trust in his servants and he charges his angels with error.
• 19 How much more dwellers in clay houses, whose foundation is in the dust?
• They are crushed like a moth.
• 20 Between morning and evening[fn] they are destroyed; without anyone regarding it they perish forever.
• 21 Is not their tent cord pulled up within them? They die, but[fn] not in[fn] wisdom.’