Chapter 4

¹Then Eliphaz the Themanite answered, and said: ²If we begin to speak to thee, perhaps thou wilt take it ill, but who can withhold the words he hath conceived? ³Behold thou hast taught many, and thou hast strengthened the weary hands: ⁴Thy words have confirmed them that were staggering, and thou hast strengthened the trembling knees: ⁵But now the scourge is come upon thee, and thou faintest: it hath touched thee, and thou art troubled. ⁶Where is thy fear, thy fortitude, thy patience, and the perfection of thy ways? ⁷Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished being innocent? or when were the just destroyed? ⁸On the contrary I have seen those who work iniquity, and sow sorrows, and reap them, ⁹Perishing by the blast of God, and consumed by the spirit of his wrath. ¹⁰The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the lioness, and the teeth of the whelps of lions are broken: ¹¹The tiger hath perished for want of prey, and the young lions are scattered abroad. ¹²Now there was a word spoken to me in private, and my ears by stealth as it were received the veins of its whisper. ¹³In the horror of a vision by night, when deep sleep is wont to hold men, ¹⁴Fear seized upon me, and trembling, and all my bones were affrighted: ¹⁵And when a spirit passed before me, the hair of my flesh stood up. ¹⁶There stood one whose countenance I knew not, an image before my eyes, and I heard the voice as it were of a gentle wind: ¹⁷Shall man be justified in comparison of God, or shall a man be more pure than his maker? ¹⁸Behold they that serve him are not steadfast, and in his angels he found wickedness: ¹⁹How much more shall they that dwell in houses of clay, who have an earthly foundation, be consumed as with the moth? ²⁰From morning till evening they shall be cut down: and because no one understandeth, they shall perish for ever. ²¹And they that shall be left, shall be taken away from them: they shall die, and not in wisdom.