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¹Then Elihu continued, saying:

²Do you think it is just when you say, “I am righteous before God”?

³For you ask, “What does it profit you, and what benefit comes to me, if I do not sin?”

⁴I will answer you and your friends with you.

⁵Look at the heavens and see; gaze at the clouds high above you.

⁶If you sin, how does it affect God? If you multiply your transgressions, what does it do to him?

⁷If you are righteous, what do you give him, or what does he receive from your hand?

⁸Your wickedness affects a person like yourself, and your righteousness, a son of man.

⁹People cry out because of severe oppression; they shout for help because of the power of the mighty.

¹⁰But no one asks, “Where is God my Maker, who provides us with songs in the night,

¹¹who gives us more understanding than the animals of the earth and makes us wiser than the birds of the sky?”

¹²There they cry out, but he does not answer, because of the pride of evil people.

¹³Indeed, God does not listen to empty cries, and the Almighty does not take note of it —

¹⁴how much less when you complain that you do not see him, that your case is before him and you are waiting for him.

¹⁵But now, because God’s anger does not punish and he does not pay attention to transgression,

¹⁶Job opens his mouth in vain and multiplies words without knowledge.

¹Then Elihu continued, saying:

²Be patient with me a little longer, and I will inform you, for there is still more to be said on God’s behalf.

³I will get my knowledge from a distant place and ascribe justice to my Maker.

⁴Indeed, my words are not false; one who has complete knowledge is with you.

⁵Yes, God is mighty, but he despises no one; he understands all things.

⁶He does not keep the wicked alive, but he gives justice to the oppressed.

⁷He does not withdraw his gaze from the righteous, but he seats them forever with enthroned kings, and they are exalted.

⁸If people are bound with chains and trapped by the cords of affliction,

⁹God tells them what they have done and how arrogantly they have transgressed.

¹⁰He opens their ears to correction and tells them to repent from iniquity.

¹¹If they listen and serve him, they will end their days in prosperity and their years in happiness.

¹²But if they do not listen, they will cross the river of death and die without knowledge.

¹³Those who have a godless heart harbor anger; even when God binds them, they do not cry for help.

¹⁴They die in their youth; their life ends among male cult prostitutes.

¹⁵God rescues the afflicted by their affliction; he instructs them by their torment.

¹⁶Indeed, he lured you from the jaws of distress to a spacious and unconfined place. Your table was spread with choice food.

¹⁷Yet now you are obsessed with the judgment due the wicked; judgment and justice have seized you.

¹⁸Be careful that no one lures you with riches; do not let a large ransom lead you astray.

¹⁹Can your wealth or all your physical exertion keep you from distress?

²⁰Do not long for the night when nations will disappear from their places.

²¹Be careful that you do not turn to iniquity, for that is why you have been tested by affliction.

²²Look, God shows himself exalted by his power. Who is a teacher like him?

²³Who has appointed his way for him, and who has declared, “You have done wrong”?

²⁴Remember that you should praise his work, which people have sung about.

²⁵All mankind has seen it; people have looked at it from a distance.

²⁶Yes, God is exalted beyond our knowledge; the number of his years cannot be counted.

²⁷For he makes waterdrops evaporate; they distill the rain into its mist,

²⁸which the clouds pour out and shower abundantly on mankind.

²⁹Can anyone understand how the clouds spread out or how the thunder roars from God’s pavilion?

³⁰See how he spreads his lightning around him and covers the depths of the sea.

³¹For he judges the nations with these; he gives food in abundance.

³²He covers his hands with lightning and commands it to hit its mark.

³³The thunder declares his presence; the cattle also, the approaching storm.

¹My heart pounds at this and leaps from my chest.

²Just listen to his thunderous voice and the rumbling that comes from his mouth.

³He lets it loose beneath the entire sky; his lightning to the ends of the earth.

⁴Then there comes a roaring sound; God thunders with his majestic voice. He does not restrain the lightning when his rumbling voice is heard.

⁵God thunders wondrously with his voice; he does great things that we cannot comprehend.

⁶For he says to the snow, “Fall to the earth,” and the torrential rains, his mighty torrential rains,

⁷serve as his sign to all mankind, so that all men may know his work.

⁸The wild animals enter their lairs and stay in their dens.

⁹The windstorm comes from its chamber, and the cold from the driving north winds.

¹⁰Ice is formed by the breath of God, and watery expanses are frozen.

¹¹He saturates clouds with moisture; he scatters his lightning through them.

¹²They swirl about, turning round and round at his direction, accomplishing everything he commands them over the surface of the inhabited world.

¹³He causes this to happen for punishment, for his land, or for his faithful love.

¹⁴Listen to this, Job. Stop and consider God’s wonders.

¹⁵Do you know how God directs his clouds or makes their lightning flash?

¹⁶Do you understand how the clouds float, those wonderful works of him who has perfect knowledge?

¹⁷You whose clothes get hot when the south wind brings calm to the land,

¹⁸can you help God spread out the skies as hard as a cast metal mirror?

¹⁹Teach us what we should say to him; we cannot prepare our case because of our darkness.

²⁰Should he be told that I want to speak? Can a man speak when he is confused?

²¹Now no one can even look at the sun when it is in the skies, after a wind has swept through and cleared the clouds away.

²²Yet out of the north he comes, shrouded in a golden glow; awesome majesty surrounds him.

²³The Almighty — we cannot reach him — he is exalted in power! He will not violate justice and abundant righteousness,

²⁴therefore, men fear him. He does not look favorably on any who are wise in heart.

¹Then the LORD answered Job from the whirlwind. He said:

²Who is this who obscures my counsel with ignorant words?

³Get ready to answer me like a man; when I question you, you will inform me.

⁴Where were you when I established the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.

⁵Who fixed its dimensions? Certainly you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it?

⁶What supports its foundations? Or who laid its cornerstone

⁷while the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

⁸Who enclosed the sea behind doors when it burst from the womb,

⁹when I made the clouds its garment and total darkness its blanket,

¹⁰when I determined its boundaries and put its bars and doors in place,

¹¹when I declared: “You may come this far, but no farther; your proud waves stop here”?

¹²Have you ever in your life commanded the morning or assigned the dawn its place,

¹³so it may seize the edges of the earth and shake the wicked out of it?

¹⁴The earth is changed as clay is by a seal; its hills stand out like the folds of a garment.

¹⁵Light is withheld from the wicked, and the arm raised in violence is broken.

¹⁶Have you traveled to the sources of the sea or walked in the depths of the oceans?

¹⁷Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Have you seen the gates of deep darkness?

¹⁸Have you comprehended the extent of the earth? Tell me, if you know all this.

¹⁹Where is the road to the home of light? Do you know where darkness lives,

²⁰so you can lead it back to its border? Are you familiar with the paths to its home?

²¹Don’t you know? You were already born; you have lived so long!

²²Have you entered the place where the snow is stored? Or have you seen the storehouses of hail,

²³which I hold in reserve for times of trouble, for the day of warfare and battle?

²⁴What road leads to the place where light is dispersed? Where is the source of the east wind that spreads across the earth?

²⁵Who cuts a channel for the flooding rain or clears the way for lightning,

²⁶to bring rain on an uninhabited land, on a desert with no human life,

²⁷to satisfy the parched wasteland and cause the grass to sprout?

²⁸Does the rain have a father? Who fathered the drops of dew?

²⁹Whose womb did the ice come from? Who gave birth to the frost of heaven

³⁰when water becomes as hard as stone, and the surface of the watery depths is frozen?

³¹Can you fasten the chains of the Pleiades or loosen the belt of Orion?

³²Can you bring out the constellations in their season and lead the Bear and her cubs?

³³Do you know the laws of heaven? Can you impose its authority on earth?

³⁴Can you command the clouds so that a flood of water covers you?

³⁵Can you send out lightning bolts, and they go? Do they report to you: “Here we are”?

³⁶Who put wisdom in the heart or gave the mind understanding?

³⁷Who has the wisdom to number the clouds? Or who can tilt the water jars of heaven

³⁸when the dust hardens like cast metal and the clods of dirt stick together?

³⁹Can you hunt prey for a lioness or satisfy the appetite of young lions

⁴⁰when they crouch in their dens and lie in wait within their lairs?

⁴¹Who provides the raven’s food when its young cry out to God and wander about for lack of food?