² Do you think it right?
    You say, “I’m more just than God.”
³ Yet you ask, “What does it benefit you?
    What have I gained by avoiding sin?”
⁴ I’ll answer you,
    and your friends along with you.
⁵ Look at the heavens and see;
    scan the clouds high over you.
⁶ If you’ve sinned, how have you affected God?
    Your offenses have multiplied;
    what have you done to him?
⁷ If you are righteous,
    what do you give to him?
    Or what does he receive from your hand?
⁸ Your evil affects others like you,
    and your righteousness affects fellow human beings.
⁹ People cry out because of heavy oppression;
    shout under the power of the mighty.
¹⁰ But no one says, “Where is God my maker;
    who gives songs in the night;
¹¹     who teaches us more than the beasts of the earth,
    makes us wiser than the birds in the sky?”
¹² Then they cry out; but he doesn’t answer,
    because of the pride of the wicked.
¹³ God certainly doesn’t respond to a deceitful cry;
    the Almighty doesn’t pay attention to it.
¹⁴ Although you say that you don’t see him,
    the case is before him;
    so wait anxiously for him.
¹⁵ Even though his anger is now held back,
    a person doesn’t know it’s only delayed.^[a]
16 So Job mouths emptiness;
    he piles up ignorant words.