New Living Translation NLT
English Standard Version ESV
1 Then Eliphaz the Temanite replied to Job:
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Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said:
2 “Will you be patient and let me say a word? For who could keep from speaking out?
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“If one ventures a word with you, will you be impatient? Yet who can keep from speaking?
3 “In the past you have encouraged many people; you have strengthened those who were weak.
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Behold, you have instructed many, and you have strengthened the weak hands.
4 Your words have supported those who were falling; you encouraged those with shaky knees.
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Your words have upheld him who was stumbling, and you have made firm the feeble knees.
5 But now when trouble strikes, you lose heart. You are terrified when it touches you.
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But now it has come to you, and you are impatient; it touches you, and you are dismayed.
6 Doesn’t your reverence for God give you confidence? Doesn’t your life of integrity give you hope?
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Is not your fear of God your confidence, and the integrity of your ways your hope?
7 “Stop and think! Do the innocent die? When have the upright been destroyed?
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“Remember: who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off?
8 My experience shows that those who plant trouble and cultivate evil will harvest the same.
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As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same.
9 A breath from God destroys them. They vanish in a blast of his anger.
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By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of his anger they are consumed.
10 The lion roars and the wildcat snarls, but the teeth of strong lions will be broken.
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The roar of the lion, the voice of the fierce lion, the teeth of the young lions are broken.
11 The fierce lion will starve for lack of prey, and the cubs of the lioness will be scattered.
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The strong lion perishes for lack of prey, and the cubs of the lioness are scattered.
12 “This truth was given to me in secret, as though whispered in my ear.
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“Now a word was brought to me stealthily; my ear received the whisper of it.
13 It came to me in a disturbing vision at night, when people are in a deep sleep.
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Amid thoughts from visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on men,
14 Fear gripped me, and my bones trembled.
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dread came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones shake.
15 A spirit swept past my face, and my hair stood on end.
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A spirit glided past my face; the hair of my flesh stood up.
16 The spirit stopped, but I couldn’t see its shape. There was a form before my eyes. In the silence I heard a voice say,
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It stood still, but I could not discern its appearance. A form was before my eyes; there was silence, then I heard a voice:
17 ‘Can a mortal be innocent before God? Can anyone be pure before the Creator?’
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‘Can mortal man be in the right before God? Can a man be pure before his Maker?
18 “If God does not trust his own angels and has charged his messengers with foolishness,
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Even in his servants he puts no trust, and his angels he charges with error;
19 how much less will he trust people made of clay! They are made of dust, crushed as easily as a moth.
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how much more those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed like the moth.
20 They are alive in the morning but dead by evening, gone forever without a trace.
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Between morning and evening they are beaten to pieces; they perish forever without anyone regarding it.
21 Their tent-cords are pulled and the tent collapses, and they die in ignorance.
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Is not their tent-cord plucked up within them, do they not die, and that without wisdom? ’
Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013 by
Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®) © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All rights reserved. ESV Text Edition: 2025