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Eliphaz the Temanite replied:
2 “If one ventures a word with you, will you be offended?
Yet who can restrain himself from speaking?
3 Look, you have instructed many,
and you have strengthened weak hands.
4 Your words have supported the one who was stumbling,
and you have strengthened feeble knees.
5 But now this trouble has come upon you, and you are discouraged;
it strikes you, and you are dismayed.
6 Should not your piety be your source of confidence,
and the uprightness of your ways your hope?
7 “Consider now: who ever perished when he was innocent?
Or where have the upright ever been destroyed?
8 As I have seen, those who plough iniquity
and those who sow trouble reap the same.
9 At the breath of God they perish,
and by the blast of His nostrils they are consumed.
10 The lion may roar and the fierce lion growl,
yet the teeth of the young lions are broken.
11 The lion perishes for lack of prey,
and the cubs of the lioness are scattered.
12 “A word was brought to me secretly,
and my ears caught a whisper of it.
13 Amid disturbing thoughts from the visions of the night,
when deep sleep falls on men,
14 fear came upon me, and trembling,
which made all my bones shake.
15 Then a spirit glided past my face,
and the hair of my flesh stood up.
16 He stood there,
but I could not discern His appearance.
A form stood before my eyes;
there was silence, then I heard a voice say,
17 ‘Can a mortal be more righteous than God?
Can a man be more pure than his Maker?
18 If God places no trust in his servants,
and His angels He charges with error,
19 how much more those who dwell in houses of clay,
whose foundations are in the dust,
who are crushed like a moth!
20 Between dawn and dusk they are broken in pieces;
they perish forever without any regarding it.
21 Are not the ropes of their tent plucked up within them?
They die, yet without wisdom’.”