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It is not right, Job, for you to say that you are innocent in God's sight,
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or to ask God, "How does my sin affect you? What have I gained by not sinning?"
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I am going to answer you and your friends too.
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Look at the sky! See how high the clouds are!
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If you sin, that does no harm to God. If you do wrong many times, does that affect him?
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Do you help God by being so righteous? There is nothing God needs from you.
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Others suffer from your sins, and the good you do helps them.
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When people are oppressed, they groan; they cry for someone to save them.
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But they don't turn to God, their Creator, who gives them hope in their darkest hours.
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They don't turn to God, who makes us wise, wiser than any animal or bird.
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They cry for help, but God doesn't answer, for they are proud and evil.
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It is useless for them to cry out; Almighty God does not see or hear them.
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Job, you say you can't see God; but wait patiently---your case is before him.
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You think that God does not punish, that he pays little attention to sin.
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It is useless for you to go on talking; it is clear you don't know what you are saying.
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Be patient and listen a little longer to what I am saying on God's behalf.
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My knowledge is wide; I will use what I know to show that God, my Creator, is just.
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Nothing I say to you is false; you see before you a truly wise man.
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How strong God is! He despises no one; there is nothing he doesn't understand.
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He does not let sinners live on, and he always treats the poor with justice.
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He protects those who are righteous; he allows them to rule like kings and lets them be honored forever.
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But if people are bound in chains, suffering for what they have done,
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God shows them their sins and their pride.
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He makes them listen to his warning to turn away from evil.
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If they obey God and serve him, they live out their lives in peace and prosperity.
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But if not, they will die in ignorance and cross the stream into the world of the dead.
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Those who are godless keep on being angry, and even when punished, they don't pray for help.
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They die while they are still young, worn out by a life of disgrace.
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But God teaches people through suffering and uses distress to open their eyes.
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God brought you out of trouble, and let you enjoy security; your table was piled high with food.
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But now you are being punished as you deserve.
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Be careful not to let bribes deceive you, or riches lead you astray.
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It will do you no good to cry out for help; all your strength can't help you now.
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Don't wish for night to come, the time when nations will perish.
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Be careful not to turn to evil; your suffering was sent to keep you from it.
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Remember how great is God's power; he is the greatest teacher of all.
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No one can tell God what to do or accuse him of doing evil.
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He has always been praised for what he does; you also must praise him.
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Everyone has seen what he has done; but we can only watch from a distance.
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We cannot fully know his greatness or count the number of his years.
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It is God who takes water from the earth and turns it into drops of rain.
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He lets the rain pour from the clouds in showers for all human beings.
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No one knows how the clouds move or how the thunder roars through the sky, where God dwells.
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He sends lightning through all the sky, but the depths of the sea remain dark.
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This is how he feeds the people and provides an abundance of food.
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He seizes the lightning with his hands and commands it to hit the mark.
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Thunder announces the approaching storm, and the cattle know it is coming.
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Now, to deal with the matters you wrote about. A man does well not to marry.
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But because there is so much immorality, every man should have his own wife, and every woman should have her own husband.
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A man should fulfill his duty as a husband, and a woman should fulfill her duty as a wife, and each should satisfy the other's needs.
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A wife is not the master of her own body, but her husband is; in the same way a husband is not the master of his own body, but his wife is.
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Do not deny yourselves to each other, unless you first agree to do so for a while in order to spend your time in prayer; but then resume normal marital relations. In this way you will be kept from giving in to Satan's temptation because of your lack of self-control.
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I tell you this not as an order, but simply as a permission.
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Actually I would prefer that all of you were as I am; but each one has a special gift from God, one person this gift, another one that gift.
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Now, to the unmarried and to the widows I say that it would be better for you to continue to live alone as I do.
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But if you cannot restrain your desires, go ahead and marry---it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
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For married people I have a command which is not my own but the Lord's: a wife must not leave her husband;
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but if she does, she must remain single or else be reconciled to her husband; and a husband must not divorce his wife.
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To the others I say (I, myself, not the Lord): if a Christian man has a wife who is an unbeliever and she agrees to go on living with him, he must not divorce her.
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And if a Christian woman is married to a man who is an unbeliever and he agrees to go on living with her, she must not divorce him.
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For the unbelieving husband is made acceptable to God by being united to his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made acceptable to God by being united to her Christian husband. If this were not so, their children would be like pagan children; but as it is, they are acceptable to God.
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However, if the one who is not a believer wishes to leave the Christian partner, let it be so. In such cases the Christian partner, whether husband or wife, is free to act. God has called you to live in peace.
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How can you be sure, Christian wife, that you will not save your husband? Or how can you be sure, Christian husband, that you will not save your wife?
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Each of you should go on living according to the Lord's gift to you, and as you were when God called you. This is the rule I teach in all the churches.
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If a circumcised man has accepted God's call, he should not try to remove the marks of circumcision; if an uncircumcised man has accepted God's call, he should not get circumcised.
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For whether or not a man is circumcised means nothing; what matters is to obey God's commandments.
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Each of you should remain as you were when you accepted God's call.
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Were you a slave when God called you? Well, never mind; but if you have a chance to become free, use it.
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For a slave who has been called by the Lord is the Lord's free person; in the same way a free person who has been called by Christ is his slave.
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God bought you for a price; so do not become slaves of people.
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My friends, each of you should remain in fellowship with God in the same condition that you were when you were called.
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Now, concerning what you wrote about unmarried people: I do not have a command from the Lord, but I give my opinion as one who by the Lord's mercy is worthy of trust.
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Considering the present distress, I think it is better for a man to stay as he is.
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Do you have a wife? Then don't try to get rid of her. Are you unmarried? Then don't look for a wife.
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But if you do marry, you haven't committed a sin; and if an unmarried woman marries, she hasn't committed a sin. But I would rather spare you the everyday troubles that married people will have.
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What I mean, my friends, is this: there is not much time left, and from now on married people should live as though they were not married;
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those who weep, as though they were not sad; those who laugh, as though they were not happy; those who buy, as though they did not own what they bought;
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those who deal in material goods, as though they were not fully occupied with them. For this world, as it is now, will not last much longer.
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I would like you to be free from worry. An unmarried man concerns himself with the Lord's work, because he is trying to please the Lord.
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But a married man concerns himself with worldly matters, because he wants to please his wife;
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and so he is pulled in two directions. An unmarried woman or a virgin concerns herself with the Lord's work, because she wants to be dedicated both in body and spirit; but a married woman concerns herself with worldly matters, because she wants to please her husband.
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I am saying this because I want to help you. I am not trying to put restrictions on you. Instead, I want you to do what is right and proper, and to give yourselves completely to the Lord's service without any reservation.
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In the case of an engaged couple who have decided not to marry: if the man feels that he is not acting properly toward the young woman and if his passions are too strong and he feels that they ought to marry, then they should get married, as he wants to. There is no sin in this.
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But if a man, without being forced to do so, has firmly made up his mind not to marry, and if he has his will under complete control and has already decided in his own mind what to do---then he does well not to marry the young woman.
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So the man who marries does well, but the one who doesn't marry does even better.
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A married woman is not free as long as her husband lives; but if her husband dies, then she is free to be married to any man she wishes, but only if he is a Christian.
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She will be happier, however, if she stays as she is. That is my opinion, and I think that I too have God's Spirit.
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Now, concerning what you wrote about food offered to idols. It is true, of course, that "all of us have knowledge," as they say. Such knowledge, however, puffs a person up with pride; but love builds up.
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Those who think they know something really don't know as they ought to know.
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But the person who loves God is known by him.
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So then, about eating the food offered to idols: we know that an idol stands for something that does not really exist; we know that there is only the one God.
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Even if there are so-called "gods," whether in heaven or on earth, and even though there are many of these "gods" and "lords,"
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yet there is for us only one God, the Father, who is the Creator of all things and for whom we live; and there is only one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things were created and through whom we live.
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But not everyone knows this truth. Some people have been so used to idols that to this day when they eat such food they still think of it as food that belongs to an idol; their conscience is weak, and they feel they are defiled by the food.
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Food, however, will not improve our relation with God; we shall not lose anything if we do not eat, nor shall we gain anything if we do eat.
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Be careful, however, not to let your freedom of action make those who are weak in the faith fall into sin.
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Suppose a person whose conscience is weak in this matter sees you, who have so-called "knowledge," eating in the temple of an idol; will not this encourage him to eat food offered to idols?
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And so this weak person, your brother for whom Christ died, will perish because of your "knowledge"!
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And in this way you will be sinning against Christ by sinning against other Christians and wounding their weak conscience.
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So then, if food makes a believer sin, I will never eat meat again, so as not to make a believer fall into sin.
