Job 35

Elihu Condemns Self-Righteousness

³⁵Elihu continued and said:

²“Do you think this to be just?

You say, ‘I am in the right before God.’^*

³If you ask, ‘What advantage have I?

How am I better off than if I had sinned?’^*

⁴I will answer you

and your friends with you.

⁵Look at the heavens and see;

observe the clouds, which are higher than you.^*

⁶If you have sinned, what do you accomplish against him?

And if your transgressions are multiplied, what do you do to him?^*

⁷If you are righteous, what do you give to him,

or what does he receive from your hand?^*

⁸Your wickedness affects others like you,

and your righteousness, other human beings.

⁹“Because of the multitude of oppressions people cry out;

they call for help because of the arm of the mighty.^*

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

who gives strength in the night,^*

¹¹who teaches us more than the animals of the earth

and makes us wiser than the birds of the air?’^*

¹²There they cry out, but he does not answer,

because of the pride of evildoers.^*

¹³Surely God does not hear an empty cry,

nor does the Almighty^w regard it.^*

¹⁴How much less when you say that you do not see him,

that the case is before him and you are waiting for him!^*

¹⁵And now, because his anger does not punish

and he does not greatly heed transgression,^x*

¹⁶Job opens his mouth in empty talk;

he multiplies words without knowledge.”^*