CHAPTER 4
1And Eliphaz the Temanite spoke out and he said:
2 If speech were tried against you, could you stand it?
Yet who can hold back words?
3 Look, you reproved many,
and slack hands you strengthened.
4The stumbler your words lifted up,
and bended knees you bolstered.
5But now it comes to you and you cannot stand it,
it reaches you and you are dismayed.
6 Is not your reverence your safety,
your hope—your blameless ways?
7 Recall, pray: what innocent man has died,
and where were the upright demolished?
8 As I have seen, those who plow mischief,
those who plant wretchedness, reap it.
9Through Godov’s breath they die,
before his nostrils’ breathing they vanish.
10 The lion’s roar, the maned beast’s sound—
and the young lions’ teeth are smashed.
11The king of beasts dies with no prey,
the whelps of the lion are scattered.
12 And to me came a word in secret,
and my ear caught a tag end of it,
13in musings from nighttime’s visions
when slumber falls upon men.
14Fear called to me, and trembling,
and all my limbs it gripped with fear.
15And a spirit passed over my face,
made the hair on my flesh stand on end.
16 It halted, its look unfamiliar,
an image before my eyes,
stillness, and a sound did I hear:
17 Can a mortal be cleared before God,
can a man be made pure by his Maker?
18 Why, His servants He does not trust,
His agents He charges with blame.
19 All the more so, the clay-house dwellers,
whose foundation is in the dust,
who are crushed more quickly than moths.
20 From morning to eve they are shattered,
unawares they are lost forever.
21Should their life thread be broken within them,