Job

CHAPTER 35

1^* Then Elihu answered and said:

2Do you think it right to say,

“I am in the right, not God”?^a

3When you ask what it profits you,

“What advantage do I have from not sinning?”^b

4I have words for a reply to you^*

and your friends as well.

5Look up to the skies and see;

behold the heavens high above you.

6If you sin, what do you do to God?

Even if your offenses are many, how do you affect him?

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

or what does he receive from your hand?^c

8Your wickedness affects only someone like yourself,

and your justice, only a fellow human being.

9In great oppression people cry out;

they call for help because of the power of the great,

10No one says, “Where is God, my Maker,

who gives songs in the night,

11Teaches us more than the beasts of the earth,

and makes us wiser than the birds of the heavens?”

12Though thus they cry out, he does not answer

because of the pride of the wicked.

13But it is idle to say God does not hear

or that the Almighty does not take notice.

14Even though you say, “You take no notice of it,”^*

the case is before him; with trembling wait upon him.

15But now that you have done otherwise, God’s anger punishes,

nor does he show much concern over a life.

16Yet Job to no purpose opens his mouth,

multiplying words without knowledge.^d

* [35:1] See note on 34:1.

* [35:4] A reply to you: Elihu refers to Job’s statement that the innocent suffer as much as the wicked, and especially to Eliphaz’s words in 22:2–3.

* [35:14–15] The text here is uncertain. It seems to indicate that Job should have realized God’s indifference is only apparent, and that, because he has not done so, God will punish him.

a. [35:2] Jb 32:2.

b. [35:3] Jb 34:9.

c. [35:7] Jb 22:3; 41:2; Lk 17:10; Rom 11:35.

d. [35:16] Jb 34:35; 38:2; 42:3.