Job, 35

1. Elihu continued his speech. He said:

2. Do you think you can prove yourself upright and establish your uprightness before God

3. by daring to say to him, 'What does it matter to you, or how does it benefit me, whether I have sinned or not?'

4. Very well, I shall tell you and your friends as well.

5. Take a look at the skies and see, observe how high the clouds are above you.

6. If you sin, how can you affect him? If you heap up crimes, what effect has it on him?

7. If you are upright, what do you give him, what benefit does he receive at your hands?

8. Your wickedness affects only your fellows, your uprightness, other human beings.

9. They too groan under the weight of oppression, they cry for help under the tyranny of the mighty,

10. but none of them thinks of saying, 'Where is God, my Maker, who makes glad songs ring out at night,

11. who has made us more intelligent than wild animals wiser than birds in the sky?'

12. Cry they may, but get no answer, to be spared from the arrogance of the wicked.

13. Of course God does not listen to trivialities, Shaddai pays no attention to them.

14. And how much less when you say, 'I cannot see him, my case is open and I am waiting for him.'

15. Or, 'His anger never punishes, he does not seem aware of human rebellion.'

16. Hence, when Job speaks, he talks nonsense, ignorantly babbling on and on.