New International Version NIV
Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible RHE
1 Then Eliphaz the Temanite replied:
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Then Eliphaz, the Themanite, answered, and said:
2 “If someone ventures a word with you, will you be impatient? But who can keep from speaking?
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If we begin to speak to thee, perhaps thou wilt take it ill; but who can withhold the words he hath conceived?
3 Think how you have instructed many, how you have strengthened feeble hands.
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Behold thou hast taught many, and thou hast strengthened the weary hands:
4 Your words have supported those who stumbled; you have strengthened faltering knees.
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Thy words have confirmed them that were staggering, and thou hast strengthened the trembling knees:
5 But now trouble comes to you, and you are discouraged; it strikes you, and you are dismayed.
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But now the scourge is come upon thee, and thou faintest: It hath touched thee, and thou art troubled.
6 Should not your piety be your confidence and your blameless ways your hope?
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Where is thy fear, thy fortitude, thy patience, and the perfection of thy ways?
7 “Consider now: Who, being innocent, has ever perished? Where were the upright ever destroyed?
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Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished being innocent? or when were the just destroyed?
8 As I have observed, those who plow evil and those who sow trouble reap it.
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On the contrary, I have seen those who work iniquity, and sow sorrows, and reap them,
9 At the breath of God they perish; at the blast of his anger they are no more.
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Perishing by the blast of God, and consumed by the spirit of his wrath.
10 The lions may roar and growl, yet the teeth of the great lions are broken.
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The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the lioness, and the teeth of the whelps of lions, are broken:
11 The lion perishes for lack of prey, and the cubs of the lioness are scattered.
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The tiger hath perished for want of prey, and the young lions are scattered abroad.
12 “A word was secretly brought to me, my ears caught a whisper of it.
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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 Amid disquieting dreams in the night, when deep sleep falls on people,
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In the horror of a vision by night, when deep sleep is wont to hold men,
14 fear and trembling seized me and made all my bones shake.
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Fear seized upon me, and trembling, and all my bones were affrighted:
15 A spirit glided past my face, and the hair on my body stood on end.
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And when a spirit passed before me, the hair of my flesh stood up.
16 It stopped, but I could not tell what it was. A form stood before my eyes, and I heard a hushed voice:
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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 ‘Can a mortal be more righteous than God? Can even a strong man be more pure than his Maker?
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Shall man be justified in comparison of God, or shall a man be more pure than his maker?
18 If God places no trust in his servants, if he charges his angels with error,
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Behold, they that serve him are not steadfast, and in his angels he found wickedness:
19 how much more those who live in houses of clay, whose foundations are in the dust, who are crushed more readily than a moth!
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How much more shall they that dwell in houses of clay, who have an earthly foundation, be consumed as with the moth?
20 Between dawn and dusk they are broken to pieces; unnoticed, they perish forever.
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From morning till evening they shall be cut down: and because no one understandeth, they shall perish for ever.
21 Are not the cords of their tent pulled up, so that they die without wisdom?’
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And they that shall be left, shall be taken away from them: they shall die, and not in wisdom.
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