JOB 35 (NIV)
- Then Elihu said:
- "Do you think this is just? You say, 'I will be cleared by God.'
- Yet you ask him, 'What profit is it to me, and what do I gain by not sinning?'
- "I would like to reply to you and to your friends with you.
- Look up at the heavens and see; gaze at the clouds so high above you.
- If you sin, how does that affect him? If your sins are many, what does that do to him?
- If you are righteous, what do you give to him, or what does he receive from your hand?
- Your wickedness affects only a man like yourself, and your righteousness only the sons of men.
- "Men cry out under a load of oppression; they plead for relief from the arm of the powerful.
- But no one says, 'Where is God my Maker, who gives songs in the night,
- who teaches more to us than to the beasts of the earth and makes us wiser than the birds of the air?'
- He does not answer when men cry out because of the arrogance of the wicked.
- Indeed, God does not listen to their empty plea; the Almighty pays no attention to it.
- How much less, then, will he listen when you say that you do not see him, that your case is before him and you must wait for him,
- and further, that his anger never punishes and he does not take the least notice of wickedness.
- So Job opens his mouth with empty talk; without knowledge he multiplies words."
