New International Version | New Living Translation |
1Then Eliphaz the Temanite replied: | 1Then Eliphaz the Temanite replied to Job: |
2"If someone ventures a word with you, will you be impatient? But who can keep from speaking? | 2“Will you be patient and let me say a word? For who could keep from speaking out? |
3Think how you have instructed many, how 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; you have strengthened faltering knees. | 4Your words have supported those who were falling; you encouraged those with shaky knees. |
5But now trouble comes to you, and you are discouraged; it strikes you, and you are dismayed. | 5But now when trouble strikes, you lose heart. You are terrified when it touches you. |
6Should not your piety be 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? |
7"Consider now: Who, being innocent, has ever perished? Where were the upright ever destroyed? | 7“Stop and think! Do the innocent die? When have the upright been destroyed? |
8As I have observed, those who plow evil and those who sow trouble reap it. | 8My experience shows that those who plant trouble and cultivate evil will harvest the same. |
9At the breath of God they perish; at the blast of his anger they are no more. | 9A breath from God destroys them. They vanish in a blast of his anger. |
10The lions may roar and growl, yet the teeth of the great lions are broken. | 10The lion roars and the wildcat snarls, but the teeth of strong lions will be broken. |
11The 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"A word was secretly brought to me, my ears caught a whisper of it. | 12“This truth was given to me in secret, as though whispered in my ear. |
13Amid disquieting dreams in the night, when deep sleep falls on people, | 13It came to me in a disturbing vision at night, when people are in a deep sleep. |
14fear and trembling seized me and made all my bones shake. | 14Fear gripped me, and my bones trembled. |
15A spirit glided past my face, and the hair on my body stood on end. | 15A spirit swept past my face, and my hair stood on end. |
16It stopped, but I could not tell what it was. A form stood before my eyes, and I heard a hushed 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, |
17Can a mortal be more righteous than God? Can even a strong man be more pure than his Maker? | 17‘Can a mortal be innocent before God? Can anyone be pure before the Creator?’ |
18If God places no trust in his servants, if 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 live in houses of clay, whose foundations are in the dust, who are crushed more readily than a moth! | 19how much less will he trust people made of clay! They are made of dust, crushed as easily as a moth. |
20Between dawn and dusk they are broken to pieces; unnoticed, they perish forever. | 20They are alive in the morning but dead by evening, gone forever without a trace. |
21Are not the cords of their tent pulled up, so that they die without wisdom?' | 21Their tent-cords are pulled and the tent collapses, and they die in ignorance. |
New International Version (NIV) Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. | Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. |
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