1Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said:
2If one ventures a word to you, will you be weary? Yet who can hold back from speaking?
3Behold, you have instructed many, and you have strengthened weak hands.
4Your words have upheld the one stumbling, and you have made firm the buckling knees.
5But now it comes to you, and you are weary; it touches you, and you are dismayed.
6Is not your fear of God your confidence, and the integrity of your ways your hope?
7Remember, please: who that was innocent ever perished? And where were the upright destroyed?
8As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same.
9By the breath of God they perish, and by the wind of his nostril they are consumed.
10The roaring of the lion and the voice of the fierce lion—and the teeth of the young lions are broken.
11The lion perishes for lack of prey, and the cubs of the lioness are scattered.
12Now a word was brought to me stealthily, and my ear caught a whisper of it.
13Amid disquieting thoughts from visions of the night, when deep sleep falls upon men,
14dread came upon me, and trembling, and it made all my bones shake.
15Then a spirit glided past my face; the hair of my flesh bristled.
16It stood still, but I could not discern its appearance; a form was before my eyes; there was silence, then I heard a voice:
17‘Can a mortal be more righteous than God? Can a man be purer than his Maker?’
18Behold, in his servants he puts no trust, and in his angels he charges error;
19how much more those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed before the moth!
20Between morning and evening they are shattered; without anyone noticing, they perish forever.
21Is not their tent-cord pulled up within them? They die, and without wisdom.
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