5. No, it is because you sin so much. You never stop sinning.
6. Maybe to guarantee loans you took things from people for no reason. Maybe you took a poor man’s clothes to make sure he paid you back.
7. Maybe you failed to give water or food to people who were tired or hungry.
8. You have a lot of farmland, and people respect you.
9. But maybe you sent widows away without giving them anything. And maybe you took advantage of orphans.
10. That is why traps are all around you, and sudden trouble makes you afraid.
11. That is why it is so dark you cannot see, and why a flood of water covers you.
12. “God lives in the highest part of heaven and looks down on the highest stars.
13. But you might say, ‘What does God know? Can he see through the dark clouds to judge us?
14. Thick clouds hide us from his eyes, so he cannot see us as he walks around the edge of the sky.’
15. “Job, you are walking on the old path that evil people walked on long ago.
16. They were destroyed before it was their time to die. They were washed away by the flood.
17. They told God, ‘Leave us alone!’ and said, ‘God All-Powerful cannot do anything to us!’
18. And it was God who filled their houses with good things. No, I would never follow the advice of evil people.