Aa
Eliphaz Speaks
1Then Eliphaz the Temanite replied:
2Should anyone try to speak with you
when you are exhausted?
Yet who can keep from speaking?
3Indeed, you have instructed many
and have strengthened4:3 Jb 26:2; Is 35:3; Heb 12:12 weak hands.
4Your words have steadied the one who was stumbling
and braced the knees that were buckling.4:4 Dt 3:28; Jb 16:15; Is 41:10
5But now that this has happened to you,
you have become exhausted.
It strikes4:5 Jb 5:19; 6:7; 19:21 you, and you are dismayed.
6Isn’t your piety your confidence,
and the integrity of your life4:6 Lit ways your hope?4:6 Jb 11:18; Ps 119:116; Jr 17:7
7Consider: Who has perished when he was innocent?
Where have the honest4:7 Or the upright, or those with integrity been destroyed?4:7 Jb 8:20; Ps 37:25; Pr 12:21
8In my experience, those who plow injustice
and those who sow trouble4:8 Jb 5:7; 15:35; Is 59:4 reap the same.4:8 Ps 7:15; Pr 22:8; Hs 8:7
9They perish at a single blast4:9 2Sm 22:26; Jb 37:10; Is 30:33 from God
and come to an end by the breath of his nostrils.4:9 Ex 15:8–10; Ps 18:15; 2Th 2:8
10The lion may roar and the fierce lion4:10 Ps 10:9; 17:12; 22:13,21 growl,
but the teeth of young lions are broken.4:10 Jb 29:17; Ps 3:7; 58:6
11The strong lion dies if it catches no prey,
and the cubs of the lioness are scattered.4:11 Ps 59:11; Pr 20:8,20; Is 33:3

12A word was brought to me in secret;
my ears caught a whisper of it.4:12 Jb 13:1; 33:16; 36:10,15
13Among unsettling thoughts from visions in the night,4:13 Jb 7:14; 20:8; 33:15
when deep sleep4:13 Gn 2:21; 15:12; Jb 33:15 comes over men,
14fear and trembling came over me4:14 Jb 21:6; Ps 55:5; 119:120
and made all my bones shake.
15I felt a draft4:15 Or a spirit on my face,
and the hair on my body stood up.
16A figure stood there,
but I could not recognize its appearance;
a form loomed before my eyes.
I heard a whispering voice:
17“Can a mortal be righteous before God?
Can a man be more pure than his Maker?” 4:17 Jb 15:14; 25:4; Pr 20:9
18If God puts no trust in his servants
and he charges his angels with foolishness,4:18 Or error; Hb obscure4:18 Jb 15:15; 21:22; 25:5
19how much more those who dwell in clay houses,4:19 Jb 10:9; 33:6; Is 64:8
whose foundation is in the dust,
who are crushed like a moth!
20They are smashed to pieces from dawn to dusk;
they perish forever while no one notices.4:20 Jb 14:2; 20:7; Ps 90:5–6
21Are their tent cords not pulled up?
They die without wisdom.4:21 Jb 36:12; Pr 5:23; 10:21