NET Bible | New Living Translation |
1Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered: | 1Then Eliphaz the Temanite replied to Job: |
2"If someone should attempt a word with you, will you be impatient? But who can refrain from speaking? | 2“Will you be patient and let me say a word? For who could keep from speaking out? |
3Look, you have instructed many; you have strengthened feeble hands. | 3“In the past you have encouraged many people; you have strengthened those who were weak. |
4Your words have supported those who stumbled, and you have strengthened the knees that gave way. | 4Your words have supported those who were falling; you encouraged those with shaky knees. |
5But now the same thing comes to you, and you are discouraged; it strikes you, and you are terrified. | 5But now when trouble strikes, you lose heart. You are terrified when it touches you. |
6Is not your piety your confidence, and your blameless ways your hope? | 6Doesn’t your reverence for God give you confidence? Doesn’t your life of integrity give you hope? |
7Call to mind now: Who, being innocent, ever perished? And where were upright people ever destroyed? | 7“Stop and think! Do the innocent die? When have the upright been destroyed? |
8Even as I have seen, those who plow iniquity and those who sow trouble reap the same. | 8My experience shows that those who plant trouble and cultivate evil will harvest the same. |
9By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of his anger they are consumed. | 9A breath from God destroys them. They vanish in a blast of his anger. |
10There is the roaring of the lion and the growling of the young lion, but the teeth of the young lions are broken. | 10The lion roars and the wildcat snarls, but the teeth of strong lions will be broken. |
11The mighty lion perishes for lack of prey, and the cubs of the lioness are scattered. | 11The fierce lion will starve for lack of prey, and the cubs of the lioness will be scattered. |
12"Now a word was secretly brought to me, and my ear caught a whisper of it. | 12“This truth was given to me in secret, as though whispered in my ear. |
13In the troubling thoughts of the dreams in the night when a deep sleep falls on men, | 13It came to me in a disturbing vision at night, when people are in a deep sleep. |
14a trembling gripped me--and a terror!--and made all my bones shake. | 14Fear gripped me, and my bones trembled. |
15Then a breath of air passes by my face; it makes the hair of my flesh stand up. | 15A spirit swept past my face, and my hair stood on end. |
16It stands still, but I cannot recognize its appearance; an image is before my eyes, and I hear a murmuring voice: | 16The spirit stopped, but I couldn’t see its shape. There was a form before my eyes. In the silence I heard a voice say, |
17"Is a mortal man righteous before God? Or a man pure before his Creator? | 17‘Can a mortal be innocent before God? Can anyone be pure before the Creator?’ |
18If God puts no trust in his servants and attributes folly to his angels, | 18“If God does not trust his own angels and has charged his messengers with foolishness, |
19how much more to those who live in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed like a moth? | 19how much less will he trust people made of clay! They are made of dust, crushed as easily as a moth. |
20They are destroyed between morning and evening; they perish forever without anyone regarding it. | 20They are alive in the morning but dead by evening, gone forever without a trace. |
21Is not their excess wealth taken away from them? They die, yet without attaining wisdom. | 21Their tent-cords are pulled and the tent collapses, and they die in ignorance. |
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