Dual Panel1Then Elihu said:
2"Do you think it is right for you to claim, ‘I am righteous before God’?
3Yet you also ask, ‘What’s the use of living a righteous life? How will it benefit me?’
4"I will answer you and all your friends, too.
5Look up into the sky and see the clouds high above you.
6If you sin, what do you accomplish against him? Even if you sin again and again, what effect will it have on him?
7If you are good, is this some great gift to him? What could you possibly give him?
8No, your sins affect only people like yourself, and your good deeds affect only other people.
9"The oppressed cry out beneath the wrongs that are done to them. They groan beneath the power of the mighty.
10Yet they don’t ask, ‘Where is God my Creator, the one who gives songs in the night?
11Where is the one who makes us wiser than the animals and birds?’
12"And if they do cry out and God does not answer, it is because of their pride.
13But it is wrong to say God doesn’t listen, to say the Almighty isn’t concerned.
14And it is even more false to say he doesn’t see what is going on. He will bring about justice if you will only wait.
15But do you cry out against him because he does not respond in anger?
16Job, you have protested in vain. You have spoken like a fool."