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¹ Next Elifaz the Teimani replied:

² "Can a human be of advantage to God?
Can even the wisest benefit him?
³ Does Shaddai gain if you are righteous?
Does he profit if you make your ways blameless?

⁴ "Is he rebuking you because you fear him?
Is this why he enters into judgment with you?
⁵ Isn't it because your wickedness is great?
Aren't your iniquities endless?

⁶ "For you kept your kinsmen's goods as collateral for no reason,
you stripped the poorly clothed of what clothing they have,
⁷ you didn't give water to the weary to drink,
you withheld food from the hungry.
⁸ As a wealthy man, an owner of land,
and as a man of rank, who lives on it,
⁹ you sent widows away empty-handed
and left the arms of orphans crushed.

¹⁰ "No wonder there are snares all around you,
and sudden terror overwhelms you,
¹¹ or darkness , so that you can't see,
and a flood of water that covers you up!

¹² "Isn't God in the heights of heaven,
looking [down even] on the highest stars?
¹³ Yet you say, ‘What does God know?
Can he see through thick darkness to judge?
¹⁴ The clouds veil him off, so that he can't see;
he just wanders around in heaven.'

¹⁵ "Are you going to keep to the old way,
the one the wicked have trodden,
¹⁶ the ones snatched away before their time,
whose foundations a flood swept away?
¹⁷ They said to God, ‘Leave us alone!
What can Shaddai do to us?'
¹⁸ Yet he himself had filled their homes with good things!
(But the advice of the wicked is far away from me.)
¹⁹ The righteous saw this and rejoiced;
the innocent laughed them to scorn —
²⁰ ‘Indeed, our substance has not been not cut off,
but the fire has consumed their wealth.'

²¹ "Learn to be at peace with [God];
in this way good will come [back] to you.
²² Please! Receive instruction from his mouth,
and take his words to heart.
²³ If you return to Shaddai, you will be built up.
If you drive wickedness far from your tents,
²⁴ if you lay your treasure down in the dust
and the gold of Ofir among the rocks in the vadis,
²⁵ and let Shaddai be your treasure
and your sparkling silver;
²⁶ then Shaddai will be your delight,
you will lift up your face to God;
²⁷ you will entreat him, and he will hear you,
and you will pay what you vowed;
²⁸ what you decide to do will succeed,
and light will shine on your path;
²⁹ when someone is brought down, you will say, ‘It was pride,
because [God] saves the humble.'

³⁰ "He delivers even the unclean;
so if your hands are clean, you will be delivered."