² “Do you think this is justice when you say,

‘I am right^[c] before God’?

³ If you ask what it profits you:

‘How do I benefit by refraining from my sin?’^[d]

⁴ I myself^[e] will give answer to you^[f]

and to your friends with you.

⁵ “Look at the heavens, and see;

and observe the clouds that are higher than you.

⁶ If you have sinned, what do you accomplish against him?

And if your transgressions are multiplied, what do you do to him?

⁷ If you are righteous, what do you give to him,

or what does he receive from your hand?

⁸ Your wickedness affects a person like yourself,

and your righteousness affects humans.

⁹ “Because of the multitude of oppressions, they cry out;

they cry for help because of the arm of the mighty.

¹⁰ But^[g] no one says, ‘Where is God my Maker,

who gives songs in the night,

¹¹ who teaches us more than the animals of the earth

and makes us wiser than the birds of the heavens?’

¹² There they cry out, but^[h] he does not answer

because of the pride of evildoers.^[i]

¹³ “Surely God does not hear an empty plea,

and Shaddai does not regard it.

¹⁴ How much less^[j] when you say that you do not see him,

that the case is before him,^[k] and you are waiting for him!

¹⁵ But^[l] now, because his anger does not punish,

and he does not acknowledge the transgression at all,

¹⁶ therefore^[m] Job opens his mouth in empty talk—

without knowledge he multiplies words.”

Footnotes

1. Job 35:1 Hebrew “And”
2. Job 35:1 Literally “answered”; see NET
3. Job 35:2 Literally “My righteousness”
4. Job 35:3 Literally “from my sin”
5. Job 35:4 Emphatic personal pronoun
6. Job 35:4 Literally “will return you words”
7. Job 35:10 Hebrew “And”
8. Job 35:12 Hebrew “and”
9. Job 35:12 Literally “from the face of the pride of evildoers”
10. Job 35:14 Literally “Also for”
11. Job 35:14 Literally “to the face of him”
12. Job 35:15 Hebrew “And”
13. Job 35:16 Hebrew “and,” or “so”