REACH OUT, I’LL BE THERE

² “Do you think this is just?
    You say, ‘I am in the right, not God.’
³ Yet you ask him, ‘What profit is it to me,^[a]
    and what do I gain by not sinning?’

⁴ “I would like to reply to you
    and to your friends with you.
⁵ Look up at the heavens and see;
    gaze at the clouds so high above you.
⁶ If you sin, how does that affect him?
    If your sins are many, what does that do to him?
⁷ If you are righteous, what do you give to him,
    or what does he receive from your hand?
⁸ Your wickedness only affects humans like yourself,
    and your righteousness only other people.

⁹ “People cry out under a load of oppression;
    they plead for relief from the arm of the powerful.
¹⁰ But no one says, ‘Where is God my Maker,
    who gives songs in the night,
¹¹ who teaches us more than he teaches^[b] the beasts of the earth
    and makes us wiser than^[c] the birds in the sky?’
¹² He does not answer when people cry out
    because of the arrogance of the wicked.
¹³ Indeed, God does not listen to their empty plea;
    the Almighty pays no attention to it.
¹⁴ How much less, then, will he listen
    when you say that you do not see him,
that your case is before him
    and you must wait for him,
¹⁵ and further, that his anger never punishes
    and he does not take the least notice of wickedness.^[d]
16 So Job opens his mouth with empty talk;
    without knowledge he multiplies words.”