Job, 35

¹ E·liʹhu continued his response:

² “Are you so convinced that you are right that you would say, ‘I am more righteous than God’?

³ For you say, ‘What does it matter to you?^*1 Am I better off than if I had sinned?’

⁴ I will reply to you And to your companions with you.

⁵ Look up to heaven and see, Observe the clouds, which are high above you.

⁶ If you sin, how do you hurt him? If your transgressions multiply, what do you do to him?

⁷ If you are righteous, what do you give him; What does he receive from you?

⁸ Your wickedness affects only a human like yourself, And your righteousness, a son of man.

⁹ People cry out when under great oppression; They cry for relief from the domination^*1 of the powerful.

¹⁰ But no one says, ‘Where is God, my Grand Maker, The one causing songs to be sung in the night?’

¹¹ He teaches us more than the beasts of the earth, And he makes us wiser than the birds of the heavens.

¹² People cry out, but he does not answer, Because of the pride of the wicked.

¹³ Surely God does not hear an empty cry;^*1 The Almighty does not pay attention to it.

¹⁴ How much less, then, when you complain that you do not see him! Your legal case is before him, so you should wait anxiously for him.

¹⁵ For he has not angrily called for an accounting; Nor has he taken note of your extreme rashness.

¹⁶ Job opens his mouth wide in vain; He multiplies words without knowledge.”