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Sunday, July 20th, 2025
the Week of Proper 11 / Ordinary 16
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Read the Bible

Easy-to-Read Version

Job 35:8

Job, the good and bad things you do affect only other people like yourself.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Man;   Self-Righteousness;   The Topic Concordance - Profit;   Righteousness;   Wickedness;  

Dictionaries:

- Holman Bible Dictionary - Guilt;   Job, the Book of;   People's Dictionary of the Bible - Elihu;  

Encyclopedias:

- The Jewish Encyclopedia - God;   Sin;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
Your wickedness affects a person like yourself,and your righteousness, a son of man.
Hebrew Names Version
Your wickedness may hurt a man as you are; And your righteousness may profit a son of man.
King James Version
Thy wickedness may hurt a man as thou art; and thy righteousness may profit the son of man.
English Standard Version
Your wickedness concerns a man like yourself, and your righteousness a son of man.
New Century Version
Your evil ways only hurt others like yourself, and the good you do only helps other human beings.
New English Translation
Your wickedness affects only a person like yourself, and your righteousness only other people.
Amplified Bible
"Your wickedness affects only a man such as you, And your righteousness affects only a son of man [but it cannot affect God, who is sovereign].
New American Standard Bible
"Your wickedness is for a man like yourself, And your righteousness is for a son of man.
World English Bible
Your wickedness may hurt a man as you are; And your righteousness may profit a son of man.
Geneva Bible (1587)
Thy wickednesse may hurt a man as thou art: and thy righteousnes may profite ye sonne of man.
Legacy Standard Bible
Your wickedness is for a man like yourself,And your righteousness is for a son of man.
Berean Standard Bible
Your wickedness affects only a man like yourself, and your righteousness only a son of men.
Contemporary English Version
The evil or good you do only affects other humans.
Complete Jewish Bible
Your wickedness can affect only others like you, and your righteousness only other human beings.
Darby Translation
Thy wickedness [may affect] a man as thou [art], and thy righteousness a son of man.
George Lamsa Translation
Your wickedness is to yourself; and your righteousness is to yourself.
Good News Translation
Others suffer from your sins, and the good you do helps them.
Lexham English Bible
Your wickedness affects a person like yourself, and your righteousness affects humans.
Literal Translation
Your wickedness is for a man like yourself; and your righteousness may profit a son of man.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
Of soch an vngodly personne as thou, & of ye sonne of man that is rightuous as thou pretendest to be:
American Standard Version
Thy wickedness may hurt a man as thou art; And thy righteousness may profit a son of man.
Bible in Basic English
Your evil-doing may have an effect on a man like yourself, or your righteousness on a son of man.
JPS Old Testament (1917)
Thy wickedness concerneth a man as thou art; and thy righteousness a son of man.
King James Version (1611)
Thy wickednesse may hurt a man as thou art, and thy righteousnesse may profit the sonne of man.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
Thy wickednesse [may hurt] a man as thou art, and thy righteousnesse [may profite] the sonne of man.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
Thy ungodliness may affect a man who is like to thee; or thy righteousness a son of man.
English Revised Version
Thy wickedness may hurt a man as thou art; and thy righteousness may profit a son of man.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Thi wickidnesse schal anoie a man, which is lijk thee; and thi riytfulnesse schal helpe the sone of a man.
Update Bible Version
Your wickedness [may hurt] a man as you are; And your righteousness [may profit] a son of man.
Webster's Bible Translation
Thy wickedness [may hurt] a man as thou [art]: and thy righteousness [may profit] the son of man.
New King James Version
Your wickedness affects a man such as you, And your righteousness a son of man.
New Living Translation
No, your sins affect only people like yourself, and your good deeds also affect only humans.
New Life Bible
Your wrong-doing may hurt another man and your being right and good may help him.
New Revised Standard
Your wickedness affects others like you, and your righteousness, other human beings.
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Unto a man like thyself, might thy lawlessness reach , and, unto a son of the earth-born, thy righteousness.
Douay-Rheims Bible
Thy wickedness may hurt a man that is like thee: and thy justice may help the son of man.
Revised Standard Version
Your wickedness concerns a man like yourself, and your righteousness a son of man.
Young's Literal Translation
For a man like thyself [is] thy wickedness, And for a son of man thy righteousness.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
"Your wickedness is for a man like yourself, And your righteousness is for a son of man.

Contextual Overview

1 Elihu continued talking and said, 2 "Job, it is not fair for you to say, ‘I am more right than God,' 3 because you also ask him, ‘What's the use of trying to please you? What good will it do me if I don't sin?' 4 "Job, I want to answer you and your friends here with you. 5 Look up at the sky. Look at the clouds, which are so much higher than you. 6 If you sin, it does not hurt God. Even if your sins are too many to count, that does nothing to God. 7 And if you are good, that does not help God. He gets nothing from you. 8 Job, the good and bad things you do affect only other people like yourself.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

may hurt: Joshua 7:1-5, Joshua 22:20, Ecclesiastes 9:18, Jonah 1:12

may profit: Job 42:8, Genesis 12:2, Genesis 18:24-33, Genesis 19:29, Psalms 106:23, Psalms 106:30, Ezekiel 22:30, Acts 27:24, Hebrews 11:7

Reciprocal: Deuteronomy 6:24 - for our good Psalms 16:2 - my goodness Titus 3:8 - good

Cross-References

Genesis 24:59
So they allowed Rebekah to go with Abraham's servant and his men. Her nurse also went with them.
Judges 2:1
The angel of the Lord went up to the city of Bokim from the city of Gilgal. The angel spoke this message from the Lord to the Israelites: "I brought you out of Egypt and led you to the land that I promised to give to your ancestors. I told you I would never break my agreement with you.
Judges 2:5
So they named the place Bokim. There they offered sacrifices to the Lord .
1 Samuel 31:13
Later, they buried the bones of Saul and his three sons under the big tree in Jabesh. Then the people of Jabesh showed their sadness—they did not eat for seven days.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Thy wickedness [may hurt] a man as thou [art],.... But not God: a man may hurt himself by his wickedness; his body, by bringing various diseases upon it, through debauchery and intemperance; his family and estate, by wasting it; his soul, for every sin is a wrong and injury to a man's soul, and exposes it to ruin and destruction: and sin does even a good man harm, since it breaks in upon his peace, and hinders his communion with God; and the wickedness of men may harm others like themselves, frail, mortal, sinful creatures, and easily led aside by ill examples; as well as there are many sins which do injury to the persons, families, and estates of others, as murder, adultery, theft, c. and since sin is harmful to others, God resents it, and punishes for it, though, strictly speaking, it cannot harm him in the sense before given

and thy righteousness [may profit] the son of man; may profit a man himself ( :-), and others, but neither for justification before God; but godliness is profitable to a man's self, both for this life and that to come, and good works are profitable to other men; for what reasons they are to be performed and maintained, see 1 Timothy 4:8. Some are of real and direct profit to men, as acts of beneficence to them, and all as being examples to them; but then no works of righteousness can be profitable to God, they adding nothing to him; which is what Elihu undertook to answer to.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Thy wickedness may hurt a Man as thou art - That is, it may injure him, but not God. He is too far exalted above man, and too independent of man in his sources of happiness, to be affected by what he can do. The object of the whole passage Job 35:6-8 is, to show that God is independent of people, and is not governed in his dealings with them on the principles which regulate their conduct with each other. One man may be greatly benefited by the conduct of another, and may feel under obligation to reward him for it; or he maybe greatly injured in his person, property, or reputation, by another, and will endeavor to avenge himself. But nothing of this kind can happen to God. If he rewards, therefore, it must be of his grace and mercy, not because he is laid under obligation; if he inflicts chastisement, it must be because people deserve it, and not because God has been injured. In this reasoning Elihu undoubtedly refers to Job, whom he regards as having urged a “claim” to a different kind of treatment, because he supposed that he “deserved” it. The general principle of Elihu is clearly correct, that God is entirely independent of human beings; that neither our good nor evil conduct can effect his happiness, and that consequently his dealings with us are those of impartial justice.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Job 35:8. Thy wickedness may hurt] It is better to translate this literally:

To a man like thyself is thy wickedness:

And to the son of man, thy righteousness:

That is: -

Thou mayest injure thyself and others by thy wickedness,

And thou mayest benefit both by thy righteousness;

But God thou canst neither hurt nor profit.


 
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