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4Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered:

5“Call now; is there anyone who will answer you? To which of the holy ones will you turn? ²Surely vexation kills the fool, and jealousy slays the simple. ³I have seen fools taking root, but suddenly I cursed their dwelling. ⁴Their children are far from safety, they are crushed in the gate, and there is no one to deliver them. ⁵The hungry eat their harvest, and they take it even out of the thorns; and the thirsty pant after their wealth.

⁶For misery does not come from the earth, nor does trouble sprout from the ground; ⁷but human beings are born to trouble just as sparks fly upward. ⁸“As for me, I would seek God, and to God I would commit my cause. ⁹He does great things and unsearchable, marvelous things without number. ¹⁰He gives rain on the earth and sends waters on the fields; ¹¹he sets on high those who are lowly, and those who mourn are lifted to safety.

¹⁷“How happy is the one whom God reproves; therefore do not despise the discipline of the Almighty. ¹⁸For he wounds, but he binds up; he strikes, but his hands heal. ¹⁹He will deliver you from six troubles; in seven no harm shall touch you. ²⁰In famine he will redeem you from death, and in war from the power of the sword. ²¹You shall be hidden from the scourge of the tongue, and shall not fear destruction when it comes. ²⁶You shall come to your grave in ripe old age, as a shock of grain comes up to the threshing floor in its season. ²⁷See, we have searched this out; it is true. Hear, and know it for yourself.”

¹⁹and after taking some food, he regained his strength. For several days he was with the disciples in Damascus, ²⁰and immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is the Son of God.” ²¹All who heard him were amazed and said, “Is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem among those who invoked this name? And has he not come here for the purpose of bringing them bound before the chief priests?” ²²Saul became increasingly more powerful and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Messiah.

²³After some time had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him, ²⁴but their plot became known to Saul. They were watching the gates day and night so that they might kill him; ²⁵but his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket. ²⁶When he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples; and they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. ²⁷But Barnabas took him, brought him to the apostles, and described for them how on the road he had seen the Lord, who had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had spoken boldly in the name of Jesus. ²⁸So he went in and out among them in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of the Lord. ²⁹He spoke and argued with the Hellenists; but they were attempting to kill him. ³⁰When the believers learned of it, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus. ³¹Meanwhile the church throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and was built up. Living in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it increased in numbers.