Eliphaz charges Job with impatience, and pretends that God never afflicts the innocent.
[1] 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.
[17] "Shall man be justified in comparison of God": These are the words which Eliphaz had heard from an angel, which, ver. 15, he calls a spirit.
[21] And they that shall be left, shall be taken away from them: they shall die, and not in wisdom.
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