Job 4  Lexham English Bible

² “If someone would test a word with you, would you be offended?
But^[b] who can refrain from speaking?
³ Look, you have instructed many,
and you have strengthened weak hands.
⁴ Your words have raised up the one who stumbles,
and you have strengthened knees giving way.
⁵ But now it has come to you, and you are worn out;
it touches you, and you are horrified.
⁶ Is not your fear in God your confidence?
Is not your hope even^[c] the integrity of your ways?
⁷ “Think^[d] now, who has perished who is innocent?
Or^[e] where are the upright destroyed?
⁸ Just as I have seen, plowers of mischief
and sowers of trouble will reap it.
⁹ By^[f] the breath of God they perish,
and by^[g] the blast of his anger they come to an end.
¹⁰ The roar of the lion and the voice of a lion in its prime,
and the teeth of the young lions are broken.
¹¹ The lion is perishing without^[h] prey,
and the lion’s whelps are scattered.
¹² “And a word came stealing to me,
and my ear received the whisper from it.
¹³ Amid troubling thoughts from night visions,
at the falling of deep sleep on men,
¹⁴ dread met me, and trembling,
and it made many of my bones shake.
¹⁵ And a spirit glided before my face;
the hair of my flesh^[i] bristled.
¹⁶ It stood still, but^[j] I could not recognize its appearance;
a form was before^[k] my eyes;
there was a hush, and I heard a voice:
¹⁷ ‘Can a human being be more righteous than God,
or can a man be more pure than his Maker?
¹⁸ Look, he does not trust in his servants
and he charges his angels with error.
¹⁹ How much more dwellers in clay houses,
whose foundation is in the dust?
They are crushed like a moth.
²⁰ Between morning and evening^[l] they are destroyed;
without anyone regarding it they perish forever.
²¹ Is not their tent cord pulled up within them?
They die, but^[m] not in^[n] wisdom.’