¹Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said,

²“If we offer you some words,

Will you take offence?

For to withhold words

– Who can do it?

³Look, you have instructed many

And strengthened weak hands.

⁴Your words have lifted up him who was stumbling,

And you have strengthened failing knees.

⁵But now it has come upon you,

And you take offence;

It has touched you,

And you are agitated.

⁶Is not your godly fear your confidence?

And is not the integrity of your ways your hope?

⁷Remember, please, who being innocent ever perished?

And where were the innocent ever annihilated?

⁸According to what I have seen,

Those who plough falsehood and sow iniquity

Reap it again.

⁹By the breath of God they perish,

And by the blast of his nostrils they are destroyed.

¹⁰The roaring of the lion

And the sound of the fierce lion

And the teeth of the young lions

Are knocked out.

¹¹The old lion perishes for want of prey,

And the whelps of the strong lion are scattered.

¹²And a word has come furtively to me,

And my ear has picked up a whisper of it,

¹³In the thoughts from the visions of the night,

When slumber falls on men.

¹⁴Dread came upon me, and trembling,

And filled the bulk of my bones with foreboding.

¹⁵And a spirit passed by my face,

And the hair on my flesh bristled up.

¹⁶It stood still,

But I could not recognize its appearance;

It was an image before my eyes.

There was silence,

Then I heard a voice, which said,

¹⁷‘Can man be more righteous than God?

Or can a man be more pure than his maker?’

¹⁸Behold, he does not put trust in his servants,

And he charges his angels with folly.

¹⁹How much less does he trust dwellers in houses of mortar,

Whose foundation is in the dust?

They could be crushed more easily than a moth.

²⁰From morning to evening they could be pounded

Without anyone ever caring

That they had perished.

²¹Would their illustriousness not be removed?

They would die,

And not in wisdom.