Eliphaz Speaks: The Innocent Prosper

¹Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said:

²“If one ventures a word with you, will you be impatient?

Yet who can keep from speaking?

³Behold, you have instructed many,

and you have astrengthened the weak hands.

⁴Your words have upheld him who was stumbling,

and you have amade firm the feeble knees.

⁵But now it has come to you, and you are impatient;

it touches you, and you are dismayed.

⁶bIs not your fear of God1 your cconfidence,

and the integrity of your ways your hope?

⁷“Remember: dwho that was innocent ever perished?

Or where were the upright cut off?

⁸As I have seen, those who eplow iniquity

and sow trouble reap the same.

⁹By fthe breath of God they perish,

and by gthe blast of his anger they are consumed.

¹⁰The roar of the lion, the voice of the fierce lion,

hthe teeth of the young lions are broken.

¹¹The strong lion perishes for lack of prey,

and the cubs of the lioness are scattered.

¹²“Now a word was brought to me stealthily;

my ear received ithe whisper of it.

¹³Amid jthoughts from kvisions of the night,

when kdeep sleep falls on men,

¹⁴dread came upon me, and trembling,

which made all my bones shake.

¹⁵A spirit glided past my face;

the hair of my flesh stood up.

¹⁶It stood still,

but I could not discern its appearance.

lA form was before my eyes;

there was silence, then I heard ma voice:

¹⁷n‘Can mortal man be in the right before2 God?

Can a man be pure before his Maker?

¹⁸Even in his servants ohe puts no trust,

and his angels he charges with error;

¹⁹how much more those who dwell in houses of pclay,

whose foundation is in qthe dust,

who are crushed like3 rthe moth.

²⁰Between smorning and evening they are beaten to pieces;

they perish forever twithout anyone regarding it.

²¹Is not their tent-cord plucked up within them,

udo they not die, and that without wisdom?’