4:1 Then Eli'phaz the Te'manite answered: |
4:2 "If one ventures a word with you, will you be offended? Yet who can keep from speaking? |
4:3 Behold, you have instructed many, and you have strengthened the weak hands. |
4:4 Your words have upheld him who was stumbling, and you have made firm the feeble knees. |
4:5 But now it has come to you, and you are impatient; it touches you, and you are dismayed. |
4:6 Is not your fear of God your confidence, and the integrity of your ways your hope? |
4:7 "Think now, who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off? |
4:8 As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and 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 The roar of the lion, the voice of the fierce lion, the teeth of the young lions, are broken. |
4:11 The strong lion perishes for lack of prey, and the whelps of the lioness are scattered. |
4:12 "Now a word was brought to me stealthily, my ear received the whisper of it. |
4:13 Amid thoughts from visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on men, |
4:14 dread came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones shake. |
4:15 A spirit glided past my face; the hair of my flesh stood up. |
4:16 It stood still, but I could not discern its appearance. A form was before my eyes; there was silence, then I heard a voice: |
4:17 'Can mortal man be righteous before God? Can a man be pure before his Maker? |
4:18 Even in his servants he puts no trust, and his angels he charges with error; |
4:19 how much more those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed before the moth. |
4:20 Between morning and evening they are destroyed; they perish for ever without any regarding it. |
4:21 If their tent-cord is plucked up within them, do they not die, and that without wisdom?' |