¹Elihu also continued, and said,

• ²“Bear with me a little, and I will show you;
• for I still have something to say on God’s behalf.

• ³I will get my knowledge from afar,
• and will ascribe righteousness to my Maker.

• ⁴For truly my words are not false.
• One who is perfect in knowledge is with you.

• ⁵“Behold, God is mighty, and doesn’t despise anyone.
• He is mighty in strength of understanding.

• ⁶He doesn’t preserve the life of the wicked,
• but gives to the afflicted their right.

• ⁷He doesn’t withdraw his eyes from the righteous,
• but with kings on the throne,
• he sets them forever, and they are exalted.

• ⁸If they are bound in fetters,
• and are taken in the cords of afflictions,

• ⁹then he shows them their work,
• and their transgressions, that they have behaved themselves proudly.

• ¹⁰He also opens their ears to instruction,
• and commands that they return from iniquity.

• ¹¹If they listen and serve him,
• they shall spend their days in prosperity,
• and their years in pleasures.

• ¹²But if they don’t listen, they shall perish by the sword;
• they shall die without knowledge.

• ¹³“But those who are godless in heart lay up anger.
• They don’t cry for help when he binds them.

• ¹⁴They die in youth.
• Their life perishes among the unclean.

• ¹⁵He delivers the afflicted by their affliction,
• and opens their ear in oppression.

• ¹⁶Yes, he would have allured you out of distress,
• into a broad place, where there is no restriction.
• That which is set on your table would be full of fatness.

• ¹⁷“But you are full of the judgment of the wicked.
• Judgment and justice take hold of you.

• ¹⁸Don’t let riches entice you to wrath,
• neither let the great size of a bribe turn you aside.

• ¹⁹Would your wealth sustain you in distress,
• or all the might of your strength?

• ²⁰Don’t desire the night,
• when people are cut off in their place.

• ²¹Take heed, don’t regard iniquity;
• for you have chosen this rather than affliction.

• ²²Behold, God is exalted in his power.
• Who is a teacher like him?

• ²³Who has prescribed his way for him?
• Or who can say, ‘You have committed unrighteousness?’

• ²⁴“Remember that you magnify his work,
• whereof men have sung.

• ²⁵All men have looked thereon.
• Man sees it afar off.

• ²⁶Behold, God is great, and we don’t know him.
• The number of his years is unsearchable.

• ²⁷For he draws up the drops of water,
• which distill in rain from his vapor,

• ²⁸Which the skies pour down
• and which drop on man abundantly.

• ²⁹Yes, can any understand the spreading of the clouds,
• and the thunderings of his pavilion?

• ³⁰Behold, he spreads his light around him.
• He covers the bottom of the sea.

• ³¹For by these he judges the people.
• He gives food in abundance.

• ³²He covers his hands with the lightning,
• and commands it to strike the mark.

• ³³Its noise tells about him,
• and the livestock also concerning the storm that comes up.