1Then Eliphaz from Teman spoke up:
2"Would you mind if I said something to you? Under the circumstances it's hard to keep quiet.
3You yourself have done this plenty of times, spoken words that clarify, encouraged those who were about to quit.
4Your words have put stumbling people on their feet, put fresh hope in people about to collapse.
5But now you're the one in trouble—you're hurting! You've been hit hard and you're reeling from the blow.
6But shouldn't your devout life give you confidence now? Shouldn't your exemplary life give you hope?
7"Think! Has a truly innocent person ever ended up on the scrap heap? Do genuinely upright people ever lose out in the end?
8It's my observation that those who plow evil and sow trouble reap evil and trouble.
9One breath from God and they fall apart, one blast of his anger and there's nothing left of them.
10The mighty lion, king of the beasts, roars mightily, but when he's toothless he's useless—
11No teeth, no prey—and the cubs wander off to fend for themselves.
12"A word came to me in secret— a mere whisper of a word, but I heard it clearly.
13It came in a scary dream one night, after I had fallen into a deep, deep sleep.
14Dread stared me in the face, and Terror. I was scared to death—I shook from head to foot.
15A spirit glided right in front of me— the hair on my head stood on end.
16I couldn't tell what it was that appeared there— a blur... and then I heard a muffled voice:
17" 'How can mere mortals be more righteous than God? How can humans be purer than their Creator?
18Why, God doesn't even trust his own servants, doesn't even cheer his angels,
19So how much less these bodies composed of mud, fragile as moths?
20These bodies of ours are here today and gone tomorrow, and no one even notices—gone without a trace.
21When the tent stakes are ripped up, the tent collapses— we die and are never the wiser for having lived.'