Job 35

¹Then Elihu said:

²“Do you think this is just?

You say, ‘I am in the right, not God.’

³Yet you ask him, ‘What profit is it to me,

and what do I gain by not sinning?’

⁴“I would like to reply to you

and to your friends with you.

⁵Look up at the heavens and see;

gaze at the clouds so high above you.

⁶If you sin, how does that affect him?

If your sins are many, what does that do to him?

⁷If you are righteous, what do you give to him,

or what does he receive from your hand?

⁸Your wickedness only affects humans like yourself,

and your righteousness only other people.

⁹“People cry out under a load of oppression;

they plead for relief from the arm of the powerful.

¹⁰But no one says, ‘Where is God my Maker,

who gives songs in the night,

¹¹who teaches us more than he teaches the beasts of the earth

and makes us wiser than the birds in the sky?’

¹²He does not answer when people cry out

because of the arrogance of the wicked.

¹³Indeed, God does not listen to their empty plea;

the Almighty pays no attention to it.

¹⁴How much less, then, will he listen

when you say that you do not see him,

that your case is before him

and you must wait for him,

¹⁵and further, that his anger never punishes

and he does not take the least notice of wickedness.

¹⁶So Job opens his mouth with empty talk;

without knowledge he multiplies words.”