35 Elihu continued:

^2-3 “Do you think it is right for you to claim, ‘I haven’t sinned, but I’m no better off before God than if I had’?

⁴ “I will answer you and all your friends too. ⁵ Look up there into the sky, high above you. ⁶ If you sin, does that shake the heavens and knock God from his throne? Even if you sin again and again, what effect will it have upon him? ⁷ Or if you are good, is this some great gift to him? ⁸ Your sins may hurt another man, or your good deeds may profit him. ^9-10 The oppressed may shriek beneath their wrongs and groan beneath the power of the rich; yet none of them cry to God, asking, ‘Where is God my Maker who gives songs in the night ¹¹ and makes us a little wiser than the animals and birds?’

¹² “But when anyone does cry out this question to him, he never replies by instant punishment of the tyrants.^{[a] 13} But it is false to say he doesn’t hear those cries; ^14-15 and it is even more false to say that he doesn’t see what is going on. He does bring about justice at last if you will only wait. But do you cry out against him because he does not instantly respond in anger? ¹⁶ Job, you have spoken like a fool.”