4:1. Then Eliphaz, the Themanite, answered, and said:
4:2. If we begin to speak to thee, perhaps thou wilt take it ill; but
who can withhold the words he hath conceived?
4:3. Behold thou hast taught many, and thou hast strengthened the weary
hands:
4:4. Thy words have confirmed them that were staggering, and thou hast
strengthened the trembling knees:
4:5. But now the scourge is come upon thee, and thou faintest: It hath
touched thee, and thou art troubled.
4:6. Where is thy fear, thy fortitude, thy patience, and the perfection
of thy ways?
4:7. Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished being innocent? or when
were the just destroyed?
4:8. On the contrary, I have seen those who work iniquity, and sow
sorrows, and reap them,
4:9. Perishing by the blast of God, and consumed by the spirit of his
wrath.
4:10. The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the lioness, and the
teeth of the whelps of lions, are broken:
4:11. The tiger hath perished for want of prey, and the young lions are
scattered abroad.
4:12. Now there was a word spoken to me in private, and my ears by
stealth, as it were, received the veins of its whisper.
4:13. In the horror of a vision by night, when deep sleep is wont to
hold men,
4:14. Fear seized upon me, and trembling, and all my bones were
affrighted:
4:15. And when a spirit passed before me, the hair of my flesh stood
up.
4:16. 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.
4:17. Shall man be justified in comparison of God, or shall a man be
more pure than his maker?
Shall man be justified in comparison of God, etc. . .These are the words
which Eliphaz had heard from an angel, which, ver. 15, he calls a
spirit.
4:18. Behold, they that serve him are not steadfast, and in his angels
he found wickedness:
4:19. How much more shall they that dwell in houses of clay, who have
an earthly foundation, be consumed as with the moth?
4:20. From morning till evening they shall be cut down: and because no
one understandeth, they shall perish for ever.
4:21. And they that shall be left, shall be taken away from them: they
shall die, and not in wisdom.