Eliphaz’s First Response to Job

1 ThenEliphaz the Temanite answered and said,

2 “If someone would test a word with you, would you be offended?

Butwho 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 eventhe integrity of your ways?

7 “Thinknow, who has perished who is innocent?

Orwhere are the upright destroyed?

8 Just as I have seen, plowers of mischief

and sowers of trouble will reap it.

9 Bythe breath of God they perish,

and bythe 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 withoutprey,

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 fleshbristled.

16 It stood still, butI could not recognize its appearance;

a form was beforemy 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 eveningthey are destroyed;

without anyone regarding it they perish forever.

21 Is not their tent cord pulled up within them?

They die, butnot inwisdom.’