Elihu condemns self-righteousness
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And Elihu went on to say:
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“Do you think this is just? You say, ‘I am more righteous than God.’(a)
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For you ask, ‘What does it profit me, and what benefit do I gain apart from sin?’
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I will reply to you and to your friends as well.
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Look to the heavens and see; gaze at the clouds high above you.
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If you sin, what do you accomplish against Him? If you multiply your transgressions, what do you do to Him?
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If you are righteous, what do you give Him, or what does He receive from your hand?
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Your wickedness affects only a man like yourself, and your righteousness only a son of man.
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Men cry out under great oppression; they plead for relief from the arm of the mighty.
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But no one asks, ‘Where is God my Maker, who gives us songs in the night,
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who teaches us more than the beasts of the earth and makes us wiser than the birds of the air?’
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There they cry out, but He does not answer, because of the pride of evil men.
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Surely God does not listen to empty pleas, and the Almighty does not take note of it.
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How much less, then, when you say that you do not see Him, that your case is before Him and you must wait for Him,
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and further, that in His anger He has not punished or taken much notice of folly!
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So Job opens his mouth in vain and multiplies words without knowledge.”
Footnotes