Job 35 / 42
- 1Then Elihu said:
- 2"Do you think this is just? You say, 'I will be cleared by 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 affects only a man like yourself, and your righteousness only the sons of men.
- 9"Men 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 more to us than to the beasts of the earth and makes us wiser than the birds of the air?'
- 12He does not answer when men 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."