Eliphaz Begins to Speak

1Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered:

2“If someone should attempt a word with you,

will you be impatient?

But who can refrain from speaking?

3Look, you have instructed many;

you have strengthened feeble hands.

4Your words have supported those

who stumbled,

and you have strengthened the knees

that gave way.

5But now the same thing comes to you,

and you are discouraged;

it strikes you,

and you are terrified.

6Is not your piety your confidence,

and your blameless ways your hope?

7Call to mind now:

Who, being innocent, ever perished?

And where were upright people ever destroyed?

8Even as I have seen, those who plow iniquity

and those who sow trouble reap the same.

9By the breath of God they perish,

and by the blast of his anger they are consumed.

10There is the roaring of the lion

and the growling of the young lion,

but the teeth of the young lions are broken.

11The 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.

13In the troubling thoughts of the dreams in the night

when a deep sleep falls on men,

14a trembling gripped me – and a terror! –

and made all my bones shake.

15Then a breath of air passes by my face;

it makes the hair of my flesh stand up.

16It 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?

18If God puts no trust in his servants

and attributes folly to his angels,

19how much more to those who live in houses of clay,

whose foundation is in the dust,

who are crushed like a moth?

20They are destroyed between morning and evening;

they perish forever without anyone regarding it.

21Is not their excess wealth taken away from them?

They die, yet without attaining wisdom.