¹ Then Eliphaz the Temanite replied: ² “If someone ventures a word with you, will you be impatient? But who can keep from speaking? ³ Think how you have instructed many, how you have strengthened feeble hands. ⁴ Your words have supported those who stumbled; you have strengthened faltering knees. ⁵ But now trouble comes to you, and you are discouraged; it strikes you, and you are dismayed. ⁶ Should not your piety be your confidence and your blameless ways your hope? ⁷ “Consider now: Who, being innocent, has ever perished? Where were the upright ever destroyed? ⁸ As I have observed, those who plow evil and those who sow trouble reap it.