Job 4

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

Tap any verse for its study page. Underlined terms mark a concept, person, or place; ✦ marks verses with cross-references.

Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Where this chapter connects

Job 15 ·5 Job 8 ·5 Job 1 ·5 Job 14 ·5 Heb 12 ·4 Ps 39 ·4 Job 9 ·3 Gen 18 ·3

Christ at the center

Job's cry for a mediator who can lay his hand on both God and man, and his confidence that 'my Redeemer lives' and will stand on the earth, reaches forward to Jesus the living Redeemer.

How Job 4 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.

Resources, by level

Lay

★ Start hereAudioThrough the WordThrough the Word · ~10 min/chapter · Free · evangelical
A clear ~10-minute audio teaching for every one of the Bible's 1,189 chapters — the most systematic free way to study chapter by chapter.

Pastoral

SermonChuck Smith — C2000 SeriesChuck Smith · Free · evangelical
Free verse-by-verse audio through the entire Bible from the founder of Calvary Chapel.

Commentaries & study tools

VideoBibleProject — Job videosBibleProject · Lay · Free · evangelical
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
VideoWatch teaching on Job 4YouTube · Lay · Free
Sermons and chapter teaching from across YouTube.
CommentaryEnduring Word — Job 4David Guzik · Lay · Free · evangelical
Readable, verse-by-verse exposition of the whole chapter.
CommentaryMatthew Henry on JobMatthew Henry · Pastoral · Free · evangelical
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
ReferenceBlue Letter Bible — Job 4Blue Letter Bible · Seminary · Free
Interlinear, lexicon, and study tools across the chapter.

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