Elihu Recalls God’s Justice

1And Elihu went on to say:

2“Do you think this is just?

You say, ‘I am more righteous than God.’a

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

and what benefit do I gain apart from sin?’

4I will reply to you

and to your friends as well.

5Look to the heavens and see;

gaze at the clouds high above you.

6If you sin, what do you accomplish against Him?

If you multiply your transgressions, what do you do to Him?

7If you are righteous, what do you give Him,

or what does He receive from your hand?

8Your wickedness affects only a man like yourself,

and your righteousness only a son of man.

9Men cry out under great oppression;

they plead for relief from the arm of the mighty.

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

who gives us songs in the night,

11who teaches us more than the beasts 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 evil men.

13Surely God does not listen to empty pleas,

and the Almighty does not take note of it.

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

that your case is before Him and you must wait for Him,

15and further, that in His anger He has not punished

or taken much notice of folly!

16So Job opens his mouth in vain

and multiplies words without knowledge.”