Job 35

Elihu Reminds Job of God's Justice

1 And Elihu went on to say: 2 “Do you think it is just when you say, ‘I am righteous before God.’? 3 For you ask, ‘What does it profit me, and what benefit do I gain apart from sin?’ 4 I will answer you and your friends with you. 5 Look to the heavens and see; gaze at the clouds high above you. 6 If you sin, what do you accomplish against Him? If you multiply your transgressions, what do you do to Him? 7 If you are righteous, what do you give Him, or what does He receive from your hand? 8 Your wickedness affects only a man like yourself, and your righteousness only a son of men. 9 Men cry out under great oppression; they plead for relief from the arm of the mighty. 10 But no one asks, ‘Where [is] God my Maker, who gives us songs in the night, 11 who teaches us more than the beasts of the earth and makes us wiser than the birds of the air?’ 12 There they cry out, but He does not answer, because of the pride of evil men. 13 Surely God does not listen to empty pleas, and the Almighty does not take note of it. 14 How much less, then, when you say that you do not see Him, that your case is before Him and you must wait for Him, 15 and further, that [in] His anger He has not punished [or] taken much notice of folly. 16 So Job opens his mouth in vain and multiplies words without knowledge.”