Eliphaz tries to comfort Job

¹ Then Eliphaz, a native of Teman, responded:

² If one tries to answer you, will you be annoyed? But who can hold words back?

³ Look, you’ve instructed many and given strength to drooping hands.

⁴ Your words have raised up the falling; you’ve steadied failing knees.

⁵ But now it comes to you, and you are dismayed; it has struck you, and you are frightened.

Sinners don’t live long

⁶ Isn’t your religion the source of your confidence; the integrity of your conduct, the source of your hope?

⁷ Think! What innocent person has ever perished? When have those who do the right thing been destroyed?

⁸ As I’ve observed, those who plow sin and sow trouble will harvest it.

⁹ When God breathes deeply, they perish; by a breath of his nostril they are annihilated.

¹⁰ The roar of a lion and snarl of the king of beasts— yet the teeth of lions are shattered;

A frightening dream

¹¹ the lion perishes without prey, and its cubs are scattered.

¹² But a word sneaked up on me; my ears caught a hint of it.

¹³ In profound thoughts, visions of night, when deep sleep falls on people,

¹⁴ fear and dread struck me; all of my bones shook.

¹⁵ A breeze swept by my face; the hair of my skin bristled.

¹⁶ It stopped. I didn’t recognize its visible form, although a figure was in front of my eyes. Silence! Then I heard a voice:

Its interpretation

¹⁷ “Can a human be more righteous than God, a person purer than their maker?”

¹⁸ If he doesn’t trust his servants and levels a charge against his messengers,

¹⁹ how much less those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundations are in dust, and who are crushed like a moth?

²⁰ They are smashed between morning and evening; they perish forever without anyone knowing.

²¹ Isn’t their tent cord pulled up? They die without wisdom.