“My soul refuses to touch them;
Such things are like loathsome food to me [sickening and repugnant].

So that I would choose suffocation,
Death rather than my pain.

“How long will you say these things?
And will the words of your mouth be a mighty wind?

‘Yet these [present evils] You have hidden in Your heart [since my creation]:
I know that this was within You [in Your purpose and thought].

“But I have intelligence and understanding as well as you;
I am not inferior to you.
Who does not know such things as these [of God’s wisdom and might]?

“Who among all these does not recognize [in all these things that good and evil are randomly scattered throughout nature and human life]
That the hand of the Lord has done this,

“Let him not trust in vanity (emptiness, futility) and be led astray;
For emptiness will be his reward [for such living].

“These [thoughts try to] make the night into the day;
‘The light is near,’ they say in the presence of darkness [but they pervert the truth].

“These ten times you have insulted me;
You are not ashamed to wrong me [and harden your hearts against me].

“If you say, ‘How shall we [continue to] persecute him?’
And ‘What pretext for a case against him can we find [since we claim the root of these afflictions is found in him]?’

But I am not silenced by the darkness [of these woes that fell on me],
Nor by the thick darkness which covers my face.

“Others have been with those who rebel against the light;
They do not want to know its ways
Nor stay in its paths.

“To whom have you uttered [these] words?
And whose spirit [inspired what] came forth from you?

“Yet these are just the fringes of His ways [mere samples of His power],
The faintest whisper of His voice!
Who can contemplate the thunder of His [full] mighty power?”

So these three men ceased answering Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes [and could not be persuaded otherwise by them].

And when Elihu saw that there was no answer in the mouths of these three men, he burned with anger.

[Elihu comments,] “Behold, God does all these things twice, yes, three times, with a man,