Eliphaz Speaks: Job Has Sinned

¹Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered:

²“If one attempts a word with you, will you be impatient?

But who can keep from speaking?

³Surely you have instructed many,

and you have strengthened the weak hands.

⁴Your words have raised up him who was falling,[#Heb 12:12]

and you have fortified the feeble knees.

⁵But now it comes upon you, and you are weary;[#Job 19:21]

it reaches even you, and you are terrified.

⁶Is not your reverence your confidence?[#Pr 3:26]

And the integrity of your ways your hope?

⁷“Remember now, who being innocent ever perished?

Or where were the upright ever wiped out?

⁸Just like I have seen, those who plow iniquity

and sow trouble, reap the same.

⁹By the breath of God they perish,[#Job 15:30; Isa 30:33]

and by the blast of His anger they are destroyed.

¹⁰The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the fierce lion,

and the teeth of the young lions are broken.

¹¹The old lion perishes for lack of prey,[#Ps 34:10]

and the cubs of the lioness are scattered.

¹²“Now a word was brought to me secretly,

and my ear received a whisper of it.

¹³Amid disquieting thoughts from night visions,

when deep sleep falls on mortals,

¹⁴terror and trembling came to me,

which made all my bones shake.

¹⁵A breath of wind was passing before my face,

and the hair on my body was standing up.

¹⁶It stood still,

but I could not recognize its appearance;

a form was in front of my eyes,

there was stillness, then I heard a voice saying:

¹⁷‘Can a mortal be more righteous than God?[#Job 9:2; 25:4]

Can a man be more pure than his maker?

¹⁸He does not trust in His servants,

and He charges His angels with error;

¹⁹Even more, those who dwell in houses of clay,

whose foundation is in the dust,

who are crushed before the moth.

²⁰They are broken in pieces from morning to evening;

they perish forever without anyone regarding it.

²¹Are not their tent ropes plucked up,

so they die, even without wisdom?’