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Job 4 :: New Living Translation (NLT)

Eliphaz’s First Response to Job
Job 4:1Then Eliphaz the Temanite replied to Job:
Job 4:2“Will you be patient and let me say a word?
For who could keep from speaking out?
Job 4:3“In the past you have encouraged many people;
you have strengthened those who were weak.
Job 4:4Your words have supported those who were falling;
you encouraged those with shaky knees.
Job 4:5But now when trouble strikes, you lose heart.
You are terrified when it touches you.
Job 4:6Doesn’t your reverence for God give you confidence?
Doesn’t your life of integrity give you hope?
Job 4:7“Stop and think! Do the innocent die?
When have the upright been destroyed?
Job 4:8My experience shows that those who plant trouble
and cultivate evil will harvest the same.
Job 4:9A breath from God destroys them.
They vanish in a blast of his anger.
Job 4:10The lion roars and the wildcat snarls,
but the teeth of strong lions will be broken.
Job 4:11The fierce lion will starve for lack of prey,
and the cubs of the lioness will be scattered.
Job 4:12“This truth was given to me in secret,
as though whispered in my ear.
Job 4:13It came to me in a disturbing vision at night,
when people are in a deep sleep.
Job 4:14Fear gripped me,
and my bones trembled.
Job 4:15A spirit[fn] swept past my face,
and my hair stood on end.[fn]
Job 4:16The spirit stopped, but I couldn’t see its shape.
There was a form before my eyes.
In the silence I heard a voice say,
Job 4:17‘Can a mortal be innocent before God?
Can anyone be pure before the Creator?’
Job 4:18“If God does not trust his own angels
and has charged his messengers with foolishness,
Job 4:19how much less will he trust people made of clay!
They are made of dust, crushed as easily as a moth.
Job 4:20They are alive in the morning but dead by evening,
gone forever without a trace.
Job 4:21Their tent-cords are pulled and the tent collapses,
and they die in ignorance.
NLT Footnotes
Or wind; also in 4:16.
Or its wind sent shivers up my spine.
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Job Chapter 4 — Additional Translations: