The Book of Job

And Elihu answered and said:

O wise men, hear my words; and you who know, listen to me;

for the ear tries words [as] the palate tastes food.

Let us choose for ourselves what is right; let us know among ourselves what [is] good.

For Job has said, I am righteous; also, God has taken away my right;

should I lie against my right? My wound [is] incurable, [yet I am] without rebellion.

What man [is] like Job, [who] drinks up derision like water;

who goes in company with those who work iniquity, and walks with wicked men?

For he has said, It is no benefit [for] a man when he is accepted with God.

So, O man of heart, listen to me; far be it from God to do wickedness; and the Almighty, to do evilly.

For He repays man's work to him; and according to a man's day, He causes him to find.

Yea, surely God will not do evilly, nor will the Almighty pervert justice.

Who has given the earth as in deposit with Him? Or who has laid the whole world?

If He sets His heart on him, [if] He gathers his spirit and his breath to Himself,

all flesh shall perish together, and man shall return to dust.

But [if you have] understanding, hear this; listen to the sound of my words:

Shall one who hates justice restrain [it]? Or will you condemn a righteous, mighty one;

who says to a king, O worthless one; to nobles, O evil one?

[How much less to Him] who does not lift up the face of rulers, nor regard the rich before the poor; for all of them [are] the work of His hands.

In a moment they die, and a people are shaken at midnight; yea, they pass away, and the mighty will be taken without a hand.

For His eyes [are] on the ways of a man, and He sees all his steps.

There is no darkness nor shadow of death, to hide there those who work iniquity.

For He does not still impose on man to go before God in judgment.

He will break mighty men in pieces without inquiry, and make stand others in their place.

So He knows their works; and He overturns in the night, so that they are crushed.

He strikes them for evil deeds in the place of the spectators,

for so they turned from following Him, and they did not consider all His ways [so as]

to cause the cry of the poor to come to Him. For He hears the cry of the afflicted.

And He gives rest; who then can condemn? And when He hides [His] face, who then can see Him? Even [it may be] against a nation and a man together,

from the reigning of ungodly men, from [being] snares for the people.

For has any said to God, I have taken away; I will not pervert?

Besides what I see, You teach me; if I have done iniquity, I will not do it again.

Must He repay you because you rejected [it]? For you must choose, and not I; therefore, speak what you know.

Men of heart will say to me, and a wise man who hears me [will say],

Job has spoken without knowledge, and his words [are] not with insight.

Would that Job may be tried to the end, because [his] answers [are] like men of iniquity.

For he adds rebellion to his sin; he claps [his] hands among us, and multiplies his words against God.