Sin’s impact

¹ Elihu continued:

² Do you think it right? You say, “I’m more just than God.”

³ Yet you ask, “What does it benefit you? What have I gained by avoiding sin?”

⁴ I’ll answer you, and your friends along with you.

⁵ Look at the heavens and see; scan the clouds high over you.

⁶ If you’ve sinned, how have you affected God? Your offenses have multiplied; what have you done to him?

⁷ If you are righteous, what do you give to him? Or what does he receive from your hand?

⁸ Your evil affects others like you, and your righteousness affects fellow human beings.

⁹ People cry out because of heavy oppression; shout under the power of the mighty.

¹⁰ But no one says, “Where is God my maker; who gives songs in the night;

¹¹ who teaches us more than the beasts of the earth, makes us wiser than the birds in the sky?”

¹² Then they cry out; but he doesn’t answer, because of the pride of the wicked.

¹³ God certainly doesn’t respond to a deceitful cry; the Almighty doesn’t pay attention to it.

¹⁴ Although you say that you don’t see him, the case is before him; so wait anxiously for him.

¹⁵ Even though his anger is now held back, a person doesn’t know it’s only delayed.

¹⁶ So Job mouths emptiness; he piles up ignorant words.