¹Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered,

• ²“If someone ventures to talk with you, will you be grieved?
• But who can withhold himself from speaking?

• ³Behold, you have instructed many,
• you have strengthened the weak hands.

• ⁴Your words have supported him who was falling,
• You have made firm the feeble knees.

• ⁵But now it has come to you, and you faint.
• It touches you, and you are troubled.

• ⁶Isn’t your piety your confidence?
• Isn’t the integrity of your ways your hope?

• ⁷“Remember, now, whoever perished, being innocent?
• Or where were the upright cut off?

• ⁸According to what I have seen, those who plow iniquity,
• and sow trouble,
• reap the same.

• ⁹By the breath of God they perish.
• By the blast of his anger are they consumed.

• ¹⁰The roaring of the lion,
• and the voice of the fierce lion,
• the teeth of the young lions, are broken.

• ¹¹The old lion perishes for lack of prey.
• The cubs of the lioness are scattered abroad.

• ¹²“Now a thing was secretly brought to me.
• My ear received a whisper of it.

• ¹³In thoughts from the visions of the night,
• when deep sleep falls on men,

• ¹⁴fear came on me, and trembling,
• which made all my bones shake.

• ¹⁵Then a spirit passed before my face.
• The hair of my flesh stood up.

• ¹⁶It stood still, but I couldn’t discern its appearance.
• A form was before my eyes.
• Silence, then I heard a voice, saying,

• ¹⁷‘Shall mortal man be more just than God?
• Shall a man be more pure than his Maker?

• ¹⁸Behold, he puts no trust in his servants.
• He charges his angels with error.

• ¹⁹How much more, those who dwell in houses of clay,
• whose foundation is in the dust,
• who are crushed before the moth!

• ²⁰Between morning and evening they are destroyed.
• They perish forever without any regarding it.

• ²¹Isn’t their tent cord plucked up within them?
• They die, and that without wisdom.’