Job 4 — AAB
Eliphaz: The Innocent Prosper
4Verse 1Then Eliphaz the Temanite replied:Verse 2“If one ventures a word with you, will you be wearied?Yet who can keep from speaking?Verse 3Surely you have instructed many,and have strengthened their feeble hands.Verse 4Your words have steadied those who stumbled;you have braced the knees that were buckling.Verse 5But now trouble has come upon you, and you are weary.It strikes you, and you are dismayed.Verse 6Is your reverence not your confidence,and the uprightness of your ways your hope?Verse 7Consider now, I plead:Who, being innocent, has ever perished?Or where have the upright been destroyed?Verse 8As I have observed, those who plow iniquityand those who sow trouble reap the same.Verse 9By the breath of God they perish,and by the blast of His anger they are consumed.Verse 10The lion may roar, and the fierce lion may growl,yet the teeth of the young lions are broken.Verse 11The old lion perishes for lack of prey,and the cubs of the lioness are scattered.Verse 12Now a word came to me secretly;my ears caught a whisper of it.Verse 13In disquieting visions in the night,when deep sleep falls on men,Verse 14fear and trembling came over meand made all my bones shudder.Verse 15Then a spirit+glided past my face,and the hair on my body bristled.Verse 16It stood still,but I could not discern its appearance;a form loomed before my eyes,and I heard a whispering voice:Verse 17‘Can a mortal be more righteous than God,or a man more pure than his Maker?Verse 18If God puts no trust in His servants,and He charges His angels with error,Verse 19how much more those who dwell in houses of clay,whose foundations are in the dust,
who can be crushed like a moth!Verse 20They are smashed to pieces from dawn to dusk;unnoticed, they perish forever.Verse 21Are not their tent cords pulled up,so that they die without wisdom?’