Job 36

1Then Elihu continued: 2Be patient with me a little longer, and I will show you that there is more to be said on God’s behalf. 3I will draw my knowledge from far and wide, and I will show that my Maker is in the right. 4Truly, my words are not false; one whose knowledge is sound is here with you. 5God is mighty, and yet he despises no one; he is mighty in strength of understanding. 6He does not let the wicked live on, but he gives the afflicted their rights. 7He does not take his eyes off the righteous; he seats them with kings on the throne, and they are raised up forever. 8And if people are bound in chains, held fast by cords of suffering, 9then he shows them what they have done, their transgressions, how they have acted with pride. 10He opens their ears to correction and commands them to turn back from evil. 11If they listen and serve him, they will spend their days in prosperity and their years in contentment. 12But if they do not listen, they perish by the sword and die without understanding. 13But those who are godless at heart hold on to their anger; they do not cry for help even when he binds them. 14They die in their youth, and their life ends among the shrine prostitutes. 15He rescues the afflicted through their suffering and opens their ears through distress. 16He was also drawing you out of the jaws of distress into a wide place with nothing to hem you in, to a table loaded with the richest food. 17But now you are full of the judgment due to the wicked; judgment and justice have taken hold of you. 18Beware that anger does not lure you into scoffing, and do not let a great ransom turn you aside. 19Can your riches keep you out of distress, or all your mighty efforts? 20Do not long for the night, when peoples are taken away from where they are. 21Be careful not to turn to evil, for you have preferred it to suffering. 22God is exalted in his power; who is a teacher like him? 23Who has prescribed his path for him, or who can say to him, “You have done wrong”? 24Remember to praise his work, which people have celebrated in song. 25Everyone has seen it; people look on it from far away. 26God is great, beyond our knowing; the number of his years cannot be searched out. 27For he draws up the drops of water, which distill as rain from his mist, 28which the clouds pour down and shower on many people. 29Can anyone understand how the clouds spread out, or the thunder from his pavilion? 30See how he scatters his lightning around him and covers the depths of the sea. 31For by these he judges the peoples and gives food in abundance. 32He fills his hands with lightning and commands it to strike the mark. 33His thunder announces his coming; even the cattle sense the storm rising.