Job 35 | NIV | STEP | Then Elihu said:

‏ Job 35

1 Then Elihu said:

2 ‘Do you think this is just?
You say, “I am in the right, not God.”
3 Yet you ask him, “What profit is it to me, ^{▼▼Or you}
and what do I gain by not sinning?”
4 ‘I would like to reply to you
and to your friends with you.
5 Look up at the heavens and see;
gaze at the clouds so high above you.
6 If you sin, how does that affect him?
If your sins are many, what does that do to him?
7 If you are righteous, what do you give to him,
or what does he receive from your hand?
8 Your 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.
10 But no one says, “Where is God my Maker,
who gives songs in the night,
11 who teaches us more than he teaches ^{▼▼Or night, / 11who teaches us by} the beasts of the earth
and makes us wiser than ^{▼▼Or us wise by} the birds in the sky?”
12 He does not answer when people cry out
because of the arrogance of the wicked.
13 Indeed, God does not listen to their empty plea;
the Almighty pays no attention to it.
14 How 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,
15 and further, that his anger never punishes
and he does not take the least notice of wickedness. ^{▼▼Symmachus, Theodotion and Vulgate; the meaning of the Hebrew for this word is uncertain.}
16 So Job opens his mouth with empty talk;
without knowledge he multiplies words.’