1Then Eliphaz replied,
2“◄Can anyone be useful to God?/Certainly no one can be useful to God.► [RHQ]
3If you were righteous, ◄would that benefit Almighty God?/that certainly would not benefit Almighty God.► [RHQ]
4“Is it because you have an awesome respect for God that he punishes you?
5No, it certainly must be [RHQ] because you are extremely wicked.
6You must have lent money to others and wrongly forced them to give you things to guarantee that they would pay that money back to you;
7You must not have given water to those who were thirsty,
8Because you were very powerful, you must have taken over all the people’s land,
9When widows came to you for help, you must have sent them away without giving them anything,
10Because of all that, now there are pits around you for you to fall into,
11It is as though it has become very dark, with the result that you cannot see anything,
12“But consider this, Job: God lives [RHQ] high up in the heavens.
13So why do you say, ‘What does God know about what we are doing?
14Do you think that while he walks on the dome that covers the sky,
15Will you continue to conduct your life the old way
16They suddenly died while they were still young;
17They kept saying to God, ‘Do not bother us,’
18But it was God who filled their houses with good things,
19“But when God punishes wicked people, and righteous people see that, they are glad,
20They say, ‘Now our enemies have been destroyed,
21“So, Job, be reconciled to God and make peace with him;
22Allow him to teach you,
23If you humble yourself and return to God,
24if you throw away your gold,
25and if you allow Almighty God to be as precious to you as your gold and your silver have been,
26you will be happy because of your close relationship with God,
27You will pray to him, and he will do what you request him to do;
28Everything that you decide to do will be successful;
29God humbles those who are proud,
30God rescues those who ◄are innocent/have not done things that are wrong►,