Chapter 4

1Then Eliphaz the Temanite said in reply:

2If one ventures a word with you, will it be too much?But who can hold back his words?

3See, you have encouraged many;You have strengthened failing hands.

4Your words have kept him who stumbled from falling;You have braced knees that gave way.

5But now that it overtakes you, it is too much;It reaches you, and you are unnerved.

6Is not your piety your confidence,Your integrity your hope?

7Think now, what innocent man ever perished?Where have the upright been destroyed?

8As I have seen, those who plow evilAnd sow mischief reap them.

9They perish by a blast from God,Are gone at the breath of His nostrils.

10The lion may roar, the cub may howl,But the teeth of the king of beasts aare broken.

11The lion perishes for lack of prey,And its whelps are scattered.

12A word came to me in stealth;My ear caught a whisper of it.

13In thought-filled visions of the night,When deep sleep falls on men,

14Fear and trembling came upon me,Causing all my bones to quake with fright.

15A wind passed by me,Making the hair of my flesh bristle.

16It halted; its appearance was strange to me;A form loomed before my eyes;I heard a murmur, a voice,

17“Can mortals be acquitted by God?Can man be cleared by his Maker?

18If He cannot trust His own servants,And casts reproacha on His angels,

19How much less those who dwell in houses of clay,Whose origin is dust,Who are crushed like the moth,

20Shattered between daybreak and evening,Perishing forever, unnoticed.

21Their cord is pulled upAnd they die, and not with wisdom.”