CHAPTER 36

¹And Elihu went on to say:

                ²Wait for me a bit while I tell you

                    that there are still words on God’s behalf.

                ³I shall speak my mind far and wide,

                    and show that the right’s with my Maker.

                ⁴For, indeed, my words are no lie,

                    one perfect in knowledge is with you.

                ⁵Look, God is great, He does not despise us,

                    great in power and understanding.

                ⁶He will not let the wicked live,

                    and He grants justice to the afflicted.

                ⁷He does not take His eye off the righteous

                    nor off kings for the throne,

                          whom He seats on high forever.

                ⁸And if captives are in fetters

                    ensnared in the bonds of affliction,

                ⁹He tells them their acts,

                    and their crimes, which grow great.

                ¹⁰And He lays bare their ear to reproof,

                    and says they must turn from wrongdoing.

                ¹¹If they obey and serve,

                          they will finish their days in bounty

                          and their years in pleasantness.

                ¹²And if they obey not, they will cross the Current,

                    and expire unawares.

                ¹³And the tainted in heart keep up anger,

                    they do not cry out when He binds them.

                ¹⁴They die in youth,

                    perish among catamites.

                ¹⁵He frees the afflicted through their affliction

                    and through oppression He lays bare their ear.

                ¹⁶He even drew you away from the straits,

                    a broad place unconfined beneath you,

                          your table heaped with rich fare.

                ¹⁷And you were filled with the case of the wicked,

                    the case and the ruling on which they depend.

                ¹⁸For look out, lest he lure you with riches,

                    lest great bribery lead you astray.

                ¹⁹Will your wealth matter to Him in straits

                    and all the efforts of power?

                ²⁰Do not pant for the night,

                    for peoples to vanish from where they are.

                ²¹Watch out, do not turn to wrongdoing,

                    which you chose instead of affliction.

                ²²Why, God looms on high in His power.

                    Who is like Him as a teacher?

                ²³Who has assigned Him His way,

                    and who has said, “You have done wrong”?

                ²⁴Recall that you exalt His deeds

                    which men have espied.

                ²⁵All humankind has beheld Him,

                    man looks from afar.

                ²⁶Why, exalted is God, and we know not,

                    the number of His years is unfathomed.

                ²⁷For He draws down drops of water,

                    they are distilled in the rain of His wetness,

                ²⁸as the skies drip moisture,

                    shower on abounding humankind.

                ²⁹Can one grasp the spread of cloud,

                    the roars from His shelter?

                ³⁰Why, He spreads over it His lightning,

                    and the roots of the sea it covers.

                ³¹For with them He exacts justice from peoples,

                    gives food in great abundance.

                ³²Lightning covers His palms,

                    and He commands it to hit the mark.

                ³³His roaring tells about Him,

                    His zealous wrath over evil acts.