Job 35

35Then Elihu said:

²“Do you think this is fair?

You say, ‘God will show that I am right,’

³but you also ask, ‘What’s the use?

I don’t gain anything by not sinning.’

⁴“I will answer you

and your friends who are with you.

⁵Look up at the sky

and see the clouds so high above you.

⁶If you sin, it does nothing to God;

even if your sins are many, they do nothing to him.

⁷If you are good, you give nothing to God;

he receives nothing from your hand.

⁸Your evil ways only hurt others like yourself,

and the good you do only helps other human beings.

⁹“People cry out when they are in trouble;

they beg for relief from powerful people.

¹⁰But no one asks, ‘Where is God, my Maker,

who gives us songs in the night,

¹¹who makes us smarter than the animals of the earth

and wiser than the birds of the air?’

¹²God does not answer evil people when they cry out,

because the wicked are proud.

¹³God does not listen to their useless begging;

the Almighty pays no attention to them.

¹⁴He will listen to you even less

when you say that you do not see him,

that your case is before him,

that you must wait for him,

¹⁵that his anger never punishes,

and that he doesn’t notice evil.

¹⁶So Job is only speaking nonsense,

saying many words without knowing what is true.”