Elihu Recalls God’s Justice

35 And Elihu went on to say:

2 “Do you think this is just?

You say, ‘I am more righteous than God.’[fn]

3 For you ask, ‘What does it profit me,

and what benefit do I gain apart from sin?’

4 I will reply to you

and to your friends as well.

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 man.

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.”