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¹ Then Eliphaz, the Themanite, answered, and said:² If we begin to speak to thee, perhaps thou wilt take it ill; but who can withhold the words he hath conceived?³ Behold thou hast taught many, and thou hast strengthened the weary hands:⁴ Thy words have confirmed them that were staggering, and thou hast strengthened the trembling knees:⁵ But now the scourge is come upon thee, and thou faintest: It hath touched thee, and thou art troubled.⁶ Where is thy fear, thy fortitude, thy patience, and the perfection of thy ways?

⁷ Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished being innocent? or when were the just destroyed?⁸ On the contrary, I have seen those who work iniquity, and sow sorrows, and reap them,⁹ Perishing by the blast of God, and consumed by the spirit of his wrath.¹⁰ The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the lioness, and the teeth of the whelps of lions, are broken:¹¹ The tiger hath perished for want of prey, and the young lions are scattered abroad.

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.¹³ In the horror of a vision by night, when deep sleep is wont to hold men,¹⁴ Fear seized upon me, and trembling, and all my bones were affrighted:¹⁵ And when a spirit passed before me, the hair of my flesh stood up.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.¹⁷ Shall man be justified in comparison of God, or shall a man be more pure than his maker?¹⁸ Behold, they that serve him are not steadfast, and in his angels he found wickedness:¹⁹ How much more shall they that dwell in houses of clay, who have an earthly foundation, be consumed as with the moth?²⁰ From morning till evening they shall be cut down: and because no one understandeth, they shall perish for ever.²¹ And they that shall be left, shall be taken away from them: they shall die, and not in wisdom.