¹ Elihu continued his speech. He said:

² Do you think you can prove yourself upright and establish your uprightness before God

³ by daring to say to him, 'What does it matter to you, or how does it benefit me, whether I have sinned or not?'

⁴ Very well, I shall tell you and your friends as well.

⁵ Take a look at the skies and see, observe how high the clouds are above you.

⁶ If you sin, how can you affect him? If you heap up crimes, what effect has it on him?

⁷ If you are upright, what do you give him, what benefit does he receive at your hands?

⁸ Your wickedness affects only your fellows, your uprightness, other human beings.

⁹ They too groan under the weight of oppression, they cry for help under the tyranny of the mighty,

¹⁰ but none of them thinks of saying, 'Where is God, my Maker, who makes glad songs ring out at night,

¹¹ who has made us more intelligent than wild animals wiser than birds in the sky?'

¹² Cry they may, but get no answer, to be spared from the arrogance of the wicked.

¹³ Of course God does not listen to trivialities, Shaddai pays no attention to them.

¹⁴ And how much less when you say, 'I cannot see him, my case is open and I am waiting for him.'

¹⁵ Or, 'His anger never punishes, he does not seem aware of human rebellion.'

¹⁶ Hence, when Job speaks, he talks nonsense, ignorantly babbling on and on.