Job 4

1Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered:

2“If someone ventures a word with you, will you be impatient? But who can keep from speaking?

3Look, you have instructed many, and you have strengthened weak hands.

4Your words have held up those who were stumbling, and you have made firm the knees that were giving way.

5But now it has come to you, and you are impatient; it touches you, and you are dismayed.

6Is not your fear of God your confidence, and the integrity of your ways your hope?

7Think now: who that was innocent ever perished? Where were the upright ever wiped out?

8As I have seen, those who plow wickedness and sow trouble reap it.

9By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of his anger they come to an end.

10The roar of the lion, the growl of the fierce lion—yet the teeth of the young lions are broken.

11The strong lion perishes for lack of prey, and the cubs of the lioness are scattered.

12A word was brought to me in secret; my ear caught a whisper of it.

13Amid troubled thoughts from visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on people,

14dread came on me, and trembling, and made all my bones shake.

15A spirit glided past my face; the hair on my body stood on end.

16It stood still, but I could not make out its appearance. A form was before my eyes; there was silence, and then I heard a voice:

17‘Can a mortal be righteous before God? Can a man be pure before his Maker?

18Look, he puts no trust in his servants, and he charges his angels with error.

19How much more those who live in houses of clay, whose foundations are in the dust, who are crushed like a moth!

20Between morning and evening they are shattered; they perish forever, and no one notices.

21Is not their tent cord pulled up within them? They die, and without wisdom.’