[1] Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered: [2] "If someone should attempt a word with you, will you be impatient? But who can refrain from speaking? [3] Look, you have instructed many; you have strengthened feeble hands. [4] Your words have supported those who stumbled, and you have strengthened the knees that gave way. [5] But now the same thing comes to you, and you are discouraged; it strikes you, and you are terrified. [6] Is not your piety your confidence, and your blameless ways your hope? [7] Call to mind now: Who, being innocent, ever perished? And where were upright people ever destroyed? [8] Even as I have seen, those who plow iniquity and those who sow trouble reap the same. [9] By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of his anger they are consumed. [10] There is the roaring of the lion and the growling of the young lion, but the teeth of the young lions are broken. [11] The mighty lion perishes for lack of prey, and the cubs of the lioness are scattered. [12] "Now a word was stealthily brought to me, and my ear caught a whisper of it. [13] In the troubling thoughts of the dreams in the night when a deep sleep falls on men, [14] dread gripped me and trembling, which made all my bones shake. [15] Then a breath of air passes by my face; it makes the hair of my flesh stand up. [16] It stands still, but I cannot recognize its appearance; an image is before my eyes, and I hear a murmuring voice: [17] 'Is a mortal man righteous before God? Or a man pure before his Creator? [18] If God puts no trust in his servants and attributes folly to his angels, [19] how much more to those who live in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed like a moth? [20] They are destroyed between morning and evening; they perish forever without anyone regarding it. [21] Is not their excess wealth taken away from them? They die, yet without attaining wisdom.'
