Eliphaz Begins to Speak

4:1 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered:

4:2 “If someone should attempt a word with you, will you be impatient? But who can refrain from speaking?

4:3 Look, you have instructed many, you have strengthened feeble hands.

4:4 Your words have supported those who stumbled, and you have strengthened the knees that gave way.

4:5 But now the same thing comes to you, and you are discouraged; it strikes you, and you are terrified.

4:6 Is not your piety your confidence, and your blameless ways your hope?

4:7 Call to mind now: Who, being innocent, ever perished? And where were upright people ever destroyed?

4:8 Even as I have seen, those who plow iniquity and those who sow trouble reap the same.

4:9 By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of his anger they are consumed.

4:10 There is the roaring of the lion and the growling of the young lion, but the teeth of the young lions are broken.

4:11 The mighty lion perishes for lack of prey, and the cubs of the lioness are scattered.

Ungodly Complainers Provoke God’s Wrath

4:12 “Now a word was secretly brought to me, and my ear caught a whisper of it.

4:13 In the troubling thoughts of the dreams in the night when a deep sleep falls on men,

4:14 a trembling gripped me — and a terror! — and made all my bones shake.

4:15 Then a breath of air passes by my face; it makes the hair of my flesh stand up.

4:16 It stands still, but I cannot recognize its appearance; an image is before my eyes, and I hear a murmuring voice:

4:17 “Is a mortal man righteous before God? Or a man pure before his Creator?

4:18 If God puts no trust in his servants and attributes folly to his angels,