Job 35 - 36 - Legacy Standard Bible

Job 35 - 36

Elihu Answers Job

Then Elihu answered and said, 2

“Do you think this is according to justice?

Do you say, ‘My righteousness is more than God’s’?

For you say, ‘What use will it be to You?

What profit will I have, more than if I had sinned?’

I will respond to you,

And your friends with you.

Look at the heavens and see;

And perceive the clouds—they are higher than you.

If you have sinned, what do you accomplish against Him?

And if your transgressions are many, what do you do to Him?

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

Or what does He receive from your hand?

Your wickedness is for a man like yourself,

And your righteousness is for a son of man.

“Because of many oppressions they cry out;

They cry for help because of the arm of many oppressors.

But no one says, ‘Where is God my Maker,

Who gives songs of praise in the night,

Who teaches us more than the beasts of the earth

And makes us wiser than the birds of the heavens?’

There they cry out, but He does not answer

Because of the pride of evil men.

Surely God will not listen to an empty cry,

Nor will the Almighty perceive it.

How much less when you say you do not perceive Him,

The case is before Him, and you must wait for Him!

And now, because He has not visited in His anger,

Nor has He acknowledged transgression well,

So Job opens his mouth vainly;

He multiplies words without knowledge.”

Elihu Says God Gives the Afflicted Justice

Then Elihu continued and said, 2

“Wait for me a little, and I will show you

That there is yet more to be said in God’s behalf.

I will take up my knowledge from afar,

And I will ascribe righteousness to my Maker.

For truly my words are not a lie;

One who is perfect in knowledge is with you.

Behold, God is mighty but does not reject;

He is mighty in the power of His heart.

He does not keep the wicked alive,

But gives justice to the afflicted.

He does not withdraw His eyes from the righteous;

But with kings on the throne

He has seated them forever, and they are exalted.

And if they are bound in fetters,

And are caught in the cords of affliction,

Then He declares to them their work

And their transgressions, that they have magnified themselves.

He opens their ear to discipline,

And says that they return from wickedness.

If they hear and serve Him,

They will end their days in prosperity

And their years in pleasures.

But if they do not hear, they shall pass away by a weapon

And they will breathe their last without knowledge.

But the godless in heart lay up anger;

They do not cry for help when He binds them.

They die in youth,

And their life perishes among the cult prostitutes.

He delivers the afflicted in their affliction,

And opens their ear in time of oppression.

Then indeed, He enticed you from the mouth of distress,

Instead of it, a broad place with no constraint;

And the comfort of your table full of fatness.

“But you were full of judgment on the wicked;

Judgment and justice take hold of you.

Beware lest wrath entice you to scoffing;

And do not let the greatness of the atonement turn you aside.

Will your cries keep you from distress,

Or all the forces of your power?

Do not long for the night,

When people vanish in their place.

Be careful, do not turn to wickedness,

For you have chosen this to affliction.

Behold, God is exalted in His power;

Who is a teacher like Him?

Who has appointed Him His way,

And who has said, ‘You have worked out unrighteousness’?

“Remember that you should exalt His work,

Of which men have sung.

All men have beheld it;

Man looks from afar.

Behold, God is exalted, and we do not know Him;

The number of His years is unsearchable.

For He draws up the drops of water,

They distill rain for His stream,

Which the clouds pour down,

They drip upon man abundantly.

Can anyone discern the spreading of the clouds,

The thundering of His pavilion?

Behold, He spreads His lightning about Him,

And He covers the depths of the sea.

For by these He judges peoples;

He gives food in abundance.

He covers His hands with the lightning,

And commands it to strike the mark.

Its thundering declares about Him;

The cattle also, concerning what is coming up.