Parallel Bible results for "job 4"

Job 4

1 Then Eliphaz, the Themanite, answered, and said:

1 Then Eliphaz from Teman spoke up:

2 If we begin to speak to thee, perhaps thou wilt take it ill; but who can withhold the words he hath conceived?

2 "Would you mind if I said something to you? Under the circumstances it's hard to keep quiet.

3 Behold thou hast taught many, and thou hast strengthened the weary hands:

3 You yourself have done this plenty of times, spoken words that clarify, encouraged those who were about to quit.

4 Thy words have confirmed them that were staggering, and thou hast strengthened the trembling knees:

4 Your words have put stumbling people on their feet, put fresh hope in people about to collapse.

5 But now the scourge is come upon thee, and thou faintest: It hath touched thee, and thou art troubled.

5 But now you're the one in trouble - you're hurting! You've been hit hard and you're reeling from the blow.

6 Where is thy fear, thy fortitude, thy patience, and the perfection of thy ways?

6 But shouldn't your devout life give you confidence now? Shouldn't your exemplary life give you hope?

7 Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished being innocent? or when were the just destroyed?

7 "Think! Has a truly innocent person ever ended up on the scrap heap? Do genuinely upright people ever lose out in the end?

8 On the contrary, I have seen those who work iniquity, and sow sorrows, and reap them,

8 It's my observation that those who plow evil and sow trouble reap evil and trouble.

9 Perishing by the blast of God, and consumed by the spirit of his wrath.

9 One breath from God and they fall apart, one blast of his anger and there's nothing left of them.

10 The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the lioness, and the teeth of the whelps of lions, are broken:

10 The mighty lion, king of the beasts, roars mightily, but when he's toothless he's useless -

11 The tiger hath perished for want of prey, and the young lions are scattered abroad.

11 No teeth, no prey - and the cubs wander off to fend for themselves.

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.

12 "A word came to me in secret - a mere whisper of a word, but I heard it clearly.

13 In the horror of a vision by night, when deep sleep is wont to hold men,

13 It came in a scary dream one night, after I had fallen into a deep, deep sleep.

14 Fear seized upon me, and trembling, and all my bones were affrighted:

14 Dread stared me in the face, and Terror. I was scared to death - I shook from head to foot.

15 And when a spirit passed before me, the hair of my flesh stood up.

15 A spirit glided right in front of me - the hair on my head stood on end.

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.

16 I couldn't tell what it was that appeared there - a blur . . . and then I heard a muffled voice:

17 Shall man be justified in comparison of God, or shall a man be more pure than his maker?

17 "'How can mere mortals be more righteous than God? How can humans be purer than their Creator?

18 Behold, they that serve him are not steadfast, and in his angels he found wickedness:

18 Why, God doesn't even trust his own servants, doesn't even cheer his angels,

19 How much more shall they that dwell in houses of clay, who have an earthly foundation, be consumed as with the moth?

19 So how much less these bodies composed of mud, fragile as moths?

20 From morning till evening they shall be cut down: and because no one understandeth, they shall perish for ever.

20 These bodies of ours are here today and gone tomorrow, and no one even notices - gone without a trace.

21 And they that shall be left, shall be taken away from them: they shall die, and not in wisdom.

21 When the tent stakes are ripped up, the tent collapses - we die and are never the wiser for having lived.'

The Douay-Rheims Bible is in the public domain.