Berean Study Bible | New Living Translation |
1Then Eliphaz the Temanite replied: | 1Then Eliphaz the Temanite replied to Job: |
2“If one ventures a word with you, will you be wearied? Yet who can keep from speaking? | 2“Will you be patient and let me say a word? For who could keep from speaking out? |
3Surely you have instructed many, and have strengthened their feeble hands. | 3“In the past you have encouraged many people; you have strengthened those who were weak. |
4Your words have steadied those who stumbled; you have braced the knees that were buckling. | 4Your words have supported those who were falling; you encouraged those with shaky knees. |
5But now trouble has come upon you, and you are weary. It strikes you, and you are dismayed. | 5But now when trouble strikes, you lose heart. You are terrified when it touches you. |
6Is your reverence not your confidence, and the uprightness of your ways your hope? | 6Doesn’t your reverence for God give you confidence? Doesn’t your life of integrity give you hope? |
7Consider now, I plead: Who, being innocent, has ever perished? Or where have the upright been destroyed? | 7“Stop and think! Do the innocent die? When have the upright been destroyed? |
8As I have observed, 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. |
10The lion may roar, and the fierce lion may growl, yet 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 old 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. |
12Now a word came to me secretly; my ears caught a whisper of it. | 12“This truth was given to me in secret, as though whispered in my ear. |
13In disquieting visions in the night, when deep sleep falls on men, | 13It came to me in a disturbing vision at night, when people are in a deep sleep. |
14fear and trembling came over me and made all my bones shudder. | 14Fear gripped me, and my bones trembled. |
15Then a spirit glided past my face, and the hair on my body bristled. | 15A spirit swept past my face, and my hair stood on end. |
16It stood still, but I could not discern its appearance; a form loomed before my eyes, and I heard a whispering 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‘Can a mortal be more righteous than God, or a man more pure than his Maker? | 17‘Can a mortal be innocent before God? Can anyone be pure before the Creator?’ |
18If God puts no trust in His servants, and He charges His angels with error, | 18“If God does not trust his own angels and has charged his messengers with foolishness, |
19how much more those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundations are in the dust, who can be 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 smashed to pieces from dawn to dusk; unnoticed, they perish forever. | 20They are alive in the morning but dead by evening, gone forever without a trace. |
21Are not their tent cords pulled up, so that they die without wisdom?’ | 21Their tent-cords are pulled and the tent collapses, and they die in ignorance. |
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