NET Bible

Eliphaz Begins to Speak1

^4:1 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered:

^4:2 “If someone should attempt a word with you, will you be impatient? But who can refrain from speaking? ^4:3 Look, you have instructed many; you have strengthened feeble hands. ^4:4 Your words have supported those who stumbled, and you have strengthened the knees that gave way. ^4:5 But now the same thing comes to you, and you are discouraged; it strikes you, and you are terrified. ^4:6 Is not your piety your confidence, and your blameless ways your hope? ^4:7 Call to mind now: Who, being innocent, ever perished? And where were upright people ever destroyed? ^4:8 Even as I have seen, those who plow iniquity and those who sow trouble reap the same. ^4:9 By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of his anger they are consumed. ^4:10 There is the roaring of the lion and the growling of the young lion, but the teeth of the young lions are broken. ^4:11 The mighty lion perishes for lack of prey, and the cubs of the lioness are scattered.

Ungodly Complainers Provoke God’s Wrath

^4:12 “Now a word was stealthily brought to me, and my ear caught a whisper of it. ^4:13 In the troubling thoughts of the dreams in the night when a deep sleep falls on men, ^4:14 dread gripped me and trembling, which made all my bones shake. ^4:15 Then a breath of air passes by my face; it makes the hair of my flesh stand up. ^4:16 It stands still, but I cannot recognize its appearance; an image is before my eyes, and I hear a murmuring voice: ^4:17 ‘Is a mortal man righteous before God? Or a man pure before his Creator? ^4:18 If God puts no trust in his servants and attributes folly to his angels, ^4:19 how much more to those who live in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed like a moth? ^4:20 They are destroyed between morning and evening; they perish forever without anyone regarding it. ^4:21 Is not their excess wealth taken away from them? They die, yet without attaining wisdom.’