1 THEN ELIPHAZ the Temanite answered and said,
2 If we venture to converse with you, will you be offended? Yet who can restrain himself from speaking? 3 Behold, you have instructed many, and you have strengthened the weak hands. 4 Your words have held firm him who was falling, and you have strengthened the feeble knees. 5 But now it is come upon you, and you faint and are grieved; it touches you, and you are troubled and dismayed. 6 Is not your [reverent] fear of God your confidence and the integrity and uprightness of your ways your hope?
7 Think [earnestly], I beg of you: who, being innocent, ever perished? Or where were those upright and in right standing with God cut off? 8 As I myself have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble and mischief reap the same. 9 By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of His anger they are consumed. 10 The roaring of the lion and the voice of the fierce lion, and the teeth of the young lions are broken. 11 The old and strong lion perishes for lack of prey, and the whelps of the lioness are scattered abroad.
12 Now a thing was secretly brought to me, and my ear received a whisper of it. 13 In 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 passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up! 16 [The spirit] stood still, but I could not discern the appearance of it. A form was before my eyes; there was silence, and then I heard a voice, saying, 17 Can mortal man be just before God, or be more right than He is? Can a man be pure before his Maker, or be more cleansed than He is? 18 Even in His [heavenly] servants He puts no trust or confidence, and His angels He charges with folly and error-- 19 How much more those who dwell in houses (bodies) of clay, whose foundations are in the dust, who are crushed like the moth. 20 Between morning and evening they are destroyed; without anyone noticing it they perish forever. 21 Is not their tent cord plucked up within them [so that the tent falls]? Do they not die, and that without [acquiring] wisdom?