4:1
Eliphaz of Teman spoke next. He said:
4:2
If we say something to you, will you bear with us? Who in any case could refrain from speaking now?
4:3
You have schooled many others, giving strength to feeble hands;
4:4
your words supported any who wavered and strengthened every failing knee.
4:5
And now your turn has come, and you lose patience, at the first touch on yourself you are overwhelmed!
4:6
Does not your piety give you confidence, and your integrity of life give you hope?
4:7
Can you recall anyone guiltless that perished? Where then have the honest been wiped out?
4:8
I speak from experience: those who plough iniquity and sow disaster, reap just that.
4:9
Under the breath of God, they perish: a blast of his anger, and they are destroyed;
4:10
the lion's roars, his savage growls, like the fangs of a lion cub, are broken off.
4:11
The lion dies for lack of prey and the lioness's whelps are dispersed.
4:12
I have received a secret revelation, a whisper has come to my ears;
4:13
by night when dreams confuse the mind and slumber lies heavy on everyone,
4:14
a shiver of horror ran through me and filled all my bones with fright.
4:15
A breath slid over my face, the hairs of my body bristled.
4:16
Someone stood there -- I did not know his face, but the form stayed there before my eyes. Silence -- then I heard a voice,
4:17
'Can a mortal seem upright to God, would anybody seem pure in the presence of his Maker?
4:18
God cannot rely even on his own servants, even with his angels he finds fault.
4:19
What then of those who live in houses of clay, who are founded on dust?
4:20
They are crushed as easily as a moth, between morning and evening they are ground to powder. They vanish for ever, with no one to bring them back.
4:21
Their tent-peg is snatched from them, and they die devoid of wisdom.'
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