Job 35
Easy-to-Read Version
35 Elihu continued talking and said,
2 “Job, it is not fair for you to say,
‘I am more right than God,’
3 because you also ask him,
‘What’s the use of trying to please you?
What good will it do me if I don’t sin?’
4 “Job, I want to answer you and your friends here with you.
5 Look up at the sky.
Look at the clouds, which are so much higher than you.
6 If you sin, it does not hurt God.
Even if your sins are too many to count, that does nothing to God.
7 And if you are good, that does not help God.
He gets nothing from you.
8 Job, the good and bad things you do
affect only other people like yourself.
9 “If people are being hurt, they cry out
and beg for protection from those who hurt them.
10 But they forget to say, ‘Where is God, the one who made me?
He is the one who gives us songs to sing in the night.
11 He is the one who makes us smarter than any animal on earth
and wiser than any bird.’
12 “Or if evil people ask God for help, he will not answer them,
because they are too proud.
13 God will not listen to their worthless begging.
God All-Powerful will not pay attention to them.
14 So, Job, God will not listen to you
when you say that you don’t see him.
You say you are waiting for your chance to meet with him
and prove that you are innocent.
15 “Job thinks that God does not punish evil
and that he pays no attention to sin.
16 So he continues his worthless talking.
Everything he has said shows he does not know what he is talking about.”
Job 35
King James Version
35 Elihu spake moreover, and said,
2 Thinkest thou this to be right, that thou saidst, My righteousness is more than God's?
3 For thou saidst, What advantage will it be unto thee? and, What profit shall I have, if I be cleansed from my sin?
4 I will answer thee, and thy companions with thee.
5 Look unto the heavens, and see; and behold the clouds which are higher than thou.
6 If thou sinnest, what doest thou against him? or if thy transgressions be multiplied, what doest thou unto him?
7 If thou be righteous, what givest thou him? or what receiveth he of thine hand?
8 Thy wickedness may hurt a man as thou art; and thy righteousness may profit the son of man.
9 By reason of the multitude of oppressions they make the oppressed to cry: they cry out by reason of the arm of the mighty.
10 But none saith, Where is God my maker, who giveth songs in the night;
11 Who teacheth us more than the beasts of the earth, and maketh us wiser than the fowls of heaven?
12 There they cry, but none giveth answer, because of the pride of evil men.
13 Surely God will not hear vanity, neither will the Almighty regard it.
14 Although thou sayest thou shalt not see him, yet judgment is before him; therefore trust thou in him.
15 But now, because it is not so, he hath visited in his anger; yet he knoweth it not in great extremity:
16 Therefore doth Job open his mouth in vain; he multiplieth words without knowledge.
Copyright © 2006 by Bible League International