Job 34

And Elihu answered and said, 2 “Hear my words, wise {ones}, and listen to me, ones knowing. 3 For the ear tests words, and the palate tastes food. \* 4 Let us choose justice for ourselves; let us know among ourselves what is good. 5 For Job has said, ‘I am righteous, but God has taken away my justice. 6 Would I lie about my justice? My arrow is incurable, without transgression.’ \* 7 What man {is} like Job? He drinks scorn like water, 8 and he travels in company with doers of iniquity and walks with men of wickedness! 9 For he has said, ‘It does not benefit a man when he delights {himself} with God.’ \* 10 Therefore, men of heart, listen to me: Sacrilege to God from wickedness, and the Almighty from iniquity! 11 For the deed of a man he repays to him, and according to the path of a man, he causes it to find him. 12 Indeed, God truly does not act wickedly, and the Almighty does not pervert justice. \* 13 Who appointed {him} over the earth? And who set the world, all of it? 14 If he set his heart upon himself, {if} he gathered his Spirit and his breath to himself, 15 all flesh would expire together, and man would return to the dust. \* 16 But if understanding, hear this; listen to the sound of my words. 17 Will one hating justice indeed govern? Or if you will condemn the Righteous {One}, the Mighty {One}, \* 18 the one saying ‘Worthless!’ to a king, ‘Wicked!’ {to} nobles, 19 who does not lift the faces of princes and does not acknowledge the rich to the face of the poor, for all of them {are} the work of his hands. 20 {In} a moment they die, and {in} the middle of the night people are shaken and they pass, and they take away the mighty, not by a hand. \* 21 For his eyes {are} upon the ways of a man, and he sees all of his steps. 22 There is no darkness and there is no deep darkness for the doers of iniquity to be hidden there. 23 For he does not set upon a man further, to go to God for judgment. \* 24 He shatters the mighty {with} no investigation, and he establishes others instead of them. 25 Because he regards their deeds, he overthrows {them} in the night, and they are crushed. \* 26 He strikes them for their wickednesses in the place of the ones seeing, 27 that because they turned from after him and they did not consider any of his ways, 28 to cause the cry of the poor to come to him, and he heard the cry of the lowly. \* 29 If he is silent, then who will condemn {him}? If he hides {his} face, then who will perceive him? Yet {he is} over a nation and over a man alike, 30 from the reigning of a godless man, from snares of the people. \* 31 If one says to God, ‘I have borne, I will not offend, 32 besides {what} I see, you teach me; if I have done iniquity, I will not continue,’ 33 from with you will he repay it? Since you despise, then you will choose and not I. So what you know, speak. \* 34 Men of heart will say to me, and a man of wisdom hearing me, 35 ‘Job does not speak with knowledge, and his words {are} not with understanding.’ \* 36 If only Job were tested to the end upon {his} answers among men of iniquity. 37 For he adds transgression to his sin; he claps among us, and he multiplies his words against God.” \*