Job

¹ Then Eliphaz from Teman spoke up:

² Under the circumstances it's hard to keep quiet.

³ that clarify, encouraged those who were about to quit.

⁴ put fresh hope in people about to collapse.

⁵ You've been hit hard and you're reeling from the blow.

⁶ Shouldn't your exemplary life give you hope?

⁷ the scrap heap? Do genuinely upright people ever lose out in the end?

⁸ and sow trouble reap evil and trouble.

⁹ one blast of his anger and there's nothing left of them.

¹⁰ but when he's toothless he's useless—

¹¹ wander off to fend for themselves.

¹² a mere whisper of a word, but I heard it clearly.

¹³ after I had fallen into a deep, deep sleep.

¹⁴ I was scared to death—I shook from head to foot.

¹⁵ the hair on my head stood on end.

¹⁶ a blur... and then I heard a muffled voice:

¹⁷ How can humans be purer than their Creator?

¹⁸ doesn't even cheer his angels,

¹⁹ fragile as moths?

²⁰ and no one even notices—gone without a trace.

²¹ we die and are never the wiser for having lived.'