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