Job 35:3-13

3 but you also ask, 'What's the use? I don't gain anything by not sinning.'

4 "I will answer you and your friends who are with you.

5 Look up at the sky and see the clouds so high above you.

6 If you sin, it does nothing to God; even if your sins are many, they do nothing to him.

7 If you are good, you give nothing to God; he receives nothing from your hand.

8 Your evil ways only hurt a man like yourself, and the good you do only helps other human beings.

9 "People cry out when they are in trouble; they beg for relief from powerful people.

10 But no one asks, 'Where is God, my Maker, who gives us songs in the night,

11 who makes us smarter than the animals of the earth and wiser than the birds of the air?'

12 God does not answer evil people when they cry out, because the wicked are proud.

13 God does not listen to their useless begging; the Almighty pays no attention to them.

Job 35:3-13 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO JOB 35

Is this chapter Elihu goes on to charge Job with other unbecoming speeches, which he undertakes to refute; as that he had represented his cause more just than God's, and religion and righteousness as things unprofitable to men, only to God; to which Elihu takes upon him to make answer, Job 35:1-8; and that the cries of the oppressed were not heard by the Lord, so as to give occasion to songs of praise and thankfulness, to which he replies, Job 35:9-13; and that Job had expressed diffidence and despair of ever seeing and enjoying the favour of God, which he endeavours to remove, Job 35:14-16.