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The Book of Job
Chapter 4
Eliphaz charges Job with impatience, and pretends that God never afflicts the innocent.
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. |
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Where is thy fear, thy fortitude, thy patience, and the perfection of thy ways? |
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Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished being innocent? or when were the just destroyed? |
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On the contrary, I have seen those who work iniquity, and sow sorrows, and reap them, |
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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: |
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And when a spirit passed before me, the hair of my flesh stood up. |
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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. |
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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. |