4 Then Eliphaz the Themanite answered, and said:

² If we begin to speak to thee, perhaps thou wilt take it ill, but who can withhold the words he hath conceived?

³ Behold thou hast taught many, and thou hast strengthened the weary hands:

⁴ Thy words have confirmed them that were staggering, and thou hast strengthened the trembling knees:

⁵ But now the scourge is come upon thee, and thou faintest: it hath touched thee, and thou art troubled.

⁶ Where is thy fear, thy fortitude, thy patience, and the perfection of thy ways?

⁷ Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished being innocent? or when were the just destroyed?

⁸ On the contrary I have seen those who work iniquity, and sow sorrows, and reap them,

⁹ Perishing by the blast of God, and consumed by the spirit of his wrath.

¹⁰ The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the lioness, and the teeth of the whelps of lions are broken:

¹¹ The tiger hath perished for want of prey, and the young lions are scattered abroad.

¹² Now there was a word spoken to me in private, and my ears by stealth as it were received the veins of its whisper.

¹³ In the horror of a vision by night, when deep sleep is wont to hold men,

¹⁴ Fear seized upon me, and trembling, and all my bones were affrighted:

¹⁵ And when a spirit passed before me, the hair of my flesh stood up.

¹⁶ There stood one whose countenance I knew not, an image before my eyes, and I heard the voice as it were of a gentle wind:

¹⁷ Shall man be justified in comparison of God, or shall a man be more pure than his maker?

¹⁸ Behold they that serve him are not steadfast, and in his angels he found wickedness:

¹⁹ How much more shall they that dwell in houses of clay, who have an earthly foundation, be consumed as with the moth?

²⁰ From morning till evening they shall be cut down: and because no one understandeth, they shall perish for ever.

²¹ And they that shall be left, shall be taken away from them: they shall die, and not in wisdom.