Elihu Recalls God’s Justice

¹ And Elihu went on to say:

² “Do you think this is just?

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

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.”