Job 34:16–30

¹⁶Now listen to me, if you are wise.

¹⁷Are you condemning the righteous God?

Do you think that he hates justice?

¹⁸God condemns kings and rulers

when they are worthless or wicked.

¹⁹He does not take the side of rulers

nor favour the rich against the poor,

for he created everyone.

²⁰Someone may suddenly die at night.

God strikes people down and they perish;

he kills the mighty with no effort at all.

²¹He watches every step we take.

²²There is no darkness dark enough

to hide a sinner from God.

²³God does not need to set a time^l

for us to go and be judged by him.

²⁴He does not need an investigation

to remove leaders and replace them with others.

²⁵Because he knows what they do

he overthrows them and crushes them by night.

²⁶He punishes sinners where all can see it,

²⁷because they have stopped following him

and ignored all his commands.

²⁸They forced the poor to cry out to God,

and he heard their calls for help.

²⁹If God decided to do nothing at all,

no one could criticize him.

If he hid his face, we would be helpless.

³⁰There would be nothing that nations could do

to keep godless oppressors from ruling them.