22 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered [Job],

² Can a man be profitable to God? Surely he that is wise is profitable to himself.^(A)

³ Is it any pleasure or advantage to the Almighty that you are righteous (upright and in right standing with Him)? Or is it gain to Him that you make your ways perfect?^(B)

⁴ Is it for your [reverential] fear of Him that He [thus] reproves you, that He enters with you into judgment?

⁵ Is not your wickedness great? There is no end to your iniquities.

⁶ For you have taken pledges of your brother for nothing, and stripped the naked of their clothing.

⁷ You have not given water to the weary to drink, and you have withheld bread from the hungry.^(C)

⁸ But [you, Job] the man with power possessed the land, and the favored and accepted man dwelt in it.

⁹ You have sent widows away empty-handed, and the arms of the fatherless have been broken.

¹⁰ Therefore snares are round about you, and sudden fear troubles and overwhelms you;

¹¹ Your light is darkened, so that you cannot see, and a flood of water covers you.

¹² Is not God in the height of heaven? And behold the height of the stars, how high they are!

¹³ Therefore you say, How and what does God know [about me]? Can He judge through the thick darkness?

¹⁴ Thick clouds are a covering to Him, so that He does not see, and He walks on the vault of the heavens.

¹⁵ Will you pay attention and keep to the old way that wicked men trod [in Noah’s time],^(D)

¹⁶ Men who were snatched away before their time, whose foundations were poured out like a stream [during the flood]?

¹⁷ They said to God, Depart from us, and, What can the Almighty do for or to us?

¹⁸ Yet He filled their houses with good [things]. But the counsel of the ungodly is far from me.

¹⁹ The righteous see it and are glad; and the innocent laugh them to scorn [saying],

²⁰ Surely those who rose up against us are cut off, and that which remained to them the fire has consumed.

²¹ Acquaint now yourself with Him [agree with God and show yourself to be conformed to His will] and be at peace; by that [you shall prosper and great] good shall come to you.

24 Why [seeing times are not hidden from the Almighty] does He not set seasons for judgment? Why do those who know Him see not His days [for punishment of the wicked]?^(A)

² Some remove the landmarks; they violently take away flocks and pasture them [appropriating land and flocks openly].

³ They drive away the donkey of the fatherless; they take the widow’s ox for a pledge.

⁴ They crowd the poor and needy off the road; the poor and meek of the earth all hide themselves.

⁵ Behold, as wild asses in the desert, [the poor] go forth to their work, seeking diligently for prey and food; the wilderness yields them bread for their children [in roots and herbage].

⁶ They reap each one his fodder in a field [that is not his own], and they glean the vintage of the wicked man.

⁷ They lie all night naked, without clothing, and have no covering in the cold.

⁸ They are wet with the showers of the mountains and cling to the rock for want of shelter.

⁹ [The violent men whose wickedness seems unnoticed] pluck the fatherless infants from the breast [to sell or make them slaves], and take [the clothing on] the poor for a pledge,

¹⁰ So that the needy go about naked for lack of clothing, and though hungry, they must carry [but not eat from] the sheaves.

¹¹ Among the olive rows [of the wicked, the poor] make oil; they tread [the fresh juice of the grape from] the presses, but suffer thirst.

¹² From out of the populous city men groan, and the very life of the wounded cries for help; yet God [seemingly] regards not the wrong done them.

3 So then, brethren, consecrated and set apart for God, who share in the heavenly calling, [thoughtfully and attentively] consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest Whom we confessed [as ours when we embraced the Christian faith].

² [See how] faithful He was to Him Who appointed Him [Apostle and High Priest], as Moses was also faithful in the whole house [of God].^(A)

³ Yet Jesus has been considered worthy of much greater honor and glory than Moses, just as the builder of a house has more honor than the house [itself].

⁴ For [of course] every house is built and furnished by someone, but the Builder of all things and the Furnisher [of the entire equipment of all things] is God.

⁵ And Moses certainly was faithful in the administration of all God’s house [but it was only] as a ministering servant. [In his entire ministry he was but] a testimony to the things which were to be spoken [the revelations to be given afterward in Christ].^(B)

⁶ But Christ (the Messiah) was faithful over His [own Father’s] house as a Son [and Master of it]. And it is we who are [now members] of this house, if we hold fast and firm to the end our joyful and exultant confidence and sense of triumph in our hope [in Christ].

⁷ Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: Today, if you will hear His voice,

⁸ Do not harden your hearts, as [happened] in the rebellion [of Israel] and their provocation and ^[a]embitterment [of Me] in the day of testing in the wilderness,

⁹ Where your fathers tried [My patience] and tested [My forbearance] and ^[b]found I stood their test, and they saw My works for forty years.

¹⁰ And so I was provoked (displeased and sorely grieved) with that generation, and said, They always err and are led astray in their hearts, and they have not perceived or recognized My ways and become progressively better and more experimentally and intimately acquainted with them.

¹¹ Accordingly, I swore in My wrath and indignation, They shall not enter into My rest.^(C)

¹² [Therefore beware] brethren, take care, lest there be in any one of you a wicked, unbelieving heart [which refuses to cleave to, trust in, and rely on Him], leading you to turn away and desert or stand aloof from the living God.

¹³ But instead warn (admonish, urge, and encourage) one another every day, as long as it is called Today, that none of you may be hardened [into settled rebellion] by the deceitfulness of sin [by the fraudulence, the stratagem, the trickery which the delusive glamor of his sin may play on him].

¹⁴ For we ^[c]have become fellows with Christ (the Messiah) and share in all He has for us, if only we hold our first newborn confidence and original assured expectation [in virtue of which we are believers] firm and unshaken to the end.

¹⁵ Then while it is [still] called Today, if you would hear His voice and when you hear it, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion [in the desert, when the people provoked and irritated and embittered God against them].^(D)

¹⁶ For who were they who heard and yet were rebellious and provoked [Him]? Was it not all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses?

¹⁷ And with whom was He irritated and provoked and grieved for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose ^[d]dismembered bodies were strewn and left in the desert?

¹⁸ And to whom did He swear that they should not enter His rest, but to those who disobeyed [who had not listened to His word and who refused to be compliant or be persuaded]?

¹⁹ So we see that they were not able to enter [into His rest], because of their unwillingness to adhere to and trust in and rely on God [unbelief had shut them out].^(E)