[1] Then Eliphaz the Temanite replied to Job: [2] "Will you be patient and let me say a word? For who could keep from speaking out? [3] "In the past you have encouraged many people; you have strengthened those who were weak. [4] Your words have supported those who were falling; you encouraged those with shaky knees. [5] But now when trouble strikes, you lose heart. You are terrified when it touches you. [6] Doesn't your reverence for God give you confidence? Doesn't your life of integrity give you hope? [7] "Stop and think! Do the innocent die? When have the upright been destroyed? [8] My experience shows that those who plant trouble and cultivate evil will harvest the same. [9] A breath from God destroys them. They vanish in a blast of his anger. [10] The lion roars and the wildcat snarls, but the teeth of strong lions will be broken. [11] The fierce lion will starve for lack of prey, and the cubs of the lioness will be scattered. [12] "This truth was given to me in secret, as though whispered in my ear. [13] It came to me in a disturbing vision at night, when people are in a deep sleep. [14] Fear gripped me, and my bones trembled. [15] A spirit swept past my face, and my hair stood on end. [16] The spirit stopped, but I couldn't see its shape. There was a form before my eyes. In the silence I heard a voice say, [17] 'Can a mortal be innocent before God? Can anyone be pure before the Creator?' [18] "If God does not trust his own angels and has charged his messengers with foolishness, [19] how much less will he trust people made of clay! They are made of dust, crushed as easily as a moth. [20] They are alive in the morning but dead by evening, gone forever without a trace. [21] Their tent-cords are pulled and the tent collapses, and they die in ignorance.
