² Do you really think it is right when you say,
“My righteousness is greater than God’s”?^[a]
3 You even say, “What use will this be to me?
How will it profit me more than if I sinned?”

⁴ But I will respond to your words—and to your friends with you!
⁵ Look at the heavens and you will see.
Take a good look at the clouds.
They are high above you!
⁶ If you have sinned, how does that affect God?
If your rebellious deeds are many, what harm can you do to him?
⁷ If you are righteous, what are you giving to him?
What does he receive from your hand?
⁸ Your wickedness only affects a man like you,
and your righteousness only impacts other people.
⁹ They cry out because of severe oppression.
They scream for relief from the arm of the powerful.
¹⁰ But no one asks, “Where is God my Maker,
    who provides songs in the night,
¹¹     who teaches us more than the wild animals on the earth,
        who makes us wiser than the birds in the sky?”

¹² Then the wicked cry out, but he does not answer,
    because of their arrogant pride.^[b]
13 Certainly God will not listen to an insincere^[c] cry,
and the Almighty will not pay attention to it.
¹⁴ How much less when you say
    that you do not see him,
    that your case has been presented to him,
    and that you are waiting for him!
¹⁵ Besides that, you say that his anger has not demanded an accounting,
and that he does not fully understand sin.^[d]
16 Job opens his mouth pointlessly,
and he heaps up words without knowledge.