¹Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said:

²If one attempts a word to you, will you be weary? But who is able to hold back speech?

³Behold, you have instructed many, and you have strengthened slack hands.

⁴Your words have raised up the one who stumbled, and the crouching knees you have made firm.

⁵But now it comes to you, and you grow weary; it touches you, and you are terrified.

⁶Is not your fear your confidence, and your hope the integrity of your ways?

⁷Remember, please: who, being innocent, has perished? And where were the upright wiped out?

⁸As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap it.

⁹By the breath of God they perish, and by the breath of his anger they come to an end.

¹⁰The roar of the lion, and the sound of the lion, and the teeth of the young lions are broken out.

¹¹The lion perishes for lack of prey, and the young of the lioness are scattered.

¹²And a word was stolen to me, and my ear took a whisper of it.

¹³In disquieting thoughts from visions of the night, when deep sleep falls upon men,

¹⁴Dread befell me, and trembling, and it made the multitude of my bones tremble.

¹⁵And a wind passed over my face; the hair of my flesh bristled.

¹⁶It stood still, and I could not recognize its appearance; a form was in front of my eyes; there was quiet, and I heard a voice:

¹⁷Can mankind be more righteous than God, or a man purer than his maker?

¹⁸Behold, he does not trust his servants, and charges his messengers with error;

¹⁹Even those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed before the moth.

²⁰From morning to evening they are crushed to pieces; with no one setting it to heart, they perish forever.

²¹Is not their tent cord pulled up within them? They die, and not with wisdom.