4:1 THEN ELIPHAZ the Temanite answered and said, |
4:2 If we venture to converse with you, will you be offended? Yet who can restrain himself from speaking? |
4:3 Behold, you have instructed many, and you have strengthened the weak hands. |
4:4 Your words have held firm him who was falling, and you have strengthened the feeble knees. |
4:5 But now it is come upon you, and you faint {and} are grieved; it touches you, and you are troubled {and} dismayed. |
4:6 Is not your [reverent] fear of God your confidence and the integrity {and} uprightness of your ways your hope? |
4:7 Think [earnestly], I beg of you: who, being innocent, ever perished? Or where were those upright {and} in right standing with God cut off? |
4:8 As I myself have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble {and} mischief reap the same. |
4:9 By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of His anger they are consumed. |
4:10 The roaring of the lion and the voice of the fierce lion, and the teeth of the young lions are broken. |
4:11 The old {and} strong lion perishes for lack of prey, and the whelps of the lioness are scattered abroad. |
4:12 Now a thing was secretly brought to me, and my ear received a whisper of it. |
4:13 In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on men, |
4:14 Fear came upon me and trembling, which made all my bones shake. |
4:15 Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up! |
4:16 [The spirit] stood still, but I could not discern the appearance of it. A form was before my eyes; there was silence, and then I heard a voice, saying, |
4:17 Can mortal man be just before God, {or} be more right than He is? Can a man be pure before his Maker, {or} be more cleansed than He is? |
4:18 Even in His [heavenly] servants He puts no trust {or} confidence, and His angels He charges with folly {and} error-- |
4:19 How much more those who dwell in houses (bodies) of clay, whose foundations are in the dust, who are crushed like the moth. |
4:20 Between morning and evening they are destroyed; without anyone noticing it they perish forever. |
4:21 Is not their tent cord plucked up within them [so that the tent falls]? Do they not die, and that without [acquiring] wisdom? |