If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored. If you remove injustice from your tents
Parallel translations
- WEB If you return to the Almighty, you shall be built up, if you put away unrighteousness far from your tents.
- KJV If thou return to the Almighty, thou shalt be built up, thou shalt put away iniquity far from thy tabernacles.
- NKJV If you return to the Almighty, you will be built up; You will remove iniquity far from your tents.
- NASB “If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored; If you remove injustice far from your tent,
- NLT If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored— so clean up your life.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Eliphaz promises that if Job returns to God and puts away sin, he will be restored. He frames repentance as the path back to blessing.
Overview
Eliphaz holds out the genuine promise that returning to the Almighty brings restoration (cf. Zech 1:3; James 4:8). The call to put away unrighteousness is biblically true. Yet it again presumes Job has wickedness to renounce. The conditional offer of being 'built up' rightly describes God's grace to the penitent, even as it is misapplied to a blameless man.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 17
- Job 11:13–14As for you, if you direct your heart and lift up your hands to Him,
- Zech 1:3So tell the people that this is what the LORD of Hosts says: ‘Return to Me, declares the LORD of Hosts, and I will return to you, says the LORD of Hosts.’
- Job 8:5–6But if you would earnestly seek God and ask the Almighty for mercy,
- Isa 55:6–7Seek the LORD while He may be found; call on Him while He is near.
- Hos 14:1–2Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God, for you have stumbled by your iniquity.
- Acts 26:20First to those in Damascus and Jerusalem, then to everyone in the region of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, I declared that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds worthy of their repentance.
- Zech 5:3–4Then he told me, “This is the curse that is going out over the face of all the land, for according to one side of the scroll, every thief will be removed; and according to the other side, every perjurer will be removed.
- 2 Tim 2:19Nevertheless, God’s firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: “The Lord knows those who are His,” and, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord must turn away from iniquity.”
- Josh 7:13–16Get up and consecrate the people, saying, ‘Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, for this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: Among you, O Israel, there are things devoted to destruction. You cannot stand against your enemies until you remove them.
- Jude 1:20But you, beloved, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit,
- Isa 33:15He who walks righteously and speaks with sincerity, who refuses gain from extortion, whose hand never takes a bribe, who stops his ears against murderous plots and shuts his eyes tightly against evil—
- Col 2:7rooted and built up in Him, established in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.
- Job 18:15Fire resides in his tent; burning sulfur rains down on his dwelling.
- Isa 19:22And the LORD will strike Egypt with a plague; He will strike them but heal them. They will turn to the LORD, and He will hear their prayers and heal them.
- Job 12:14What He tears down cannot be rebuilt; the man He imprisons cannot be released.
- Isa 31:6Return to the One against whom you have so blatantly rebelled, O children of Israel.
- Jer 31:4Again I will build you, and you will be rebuilt, O Virgin Israel. Again you will take up your tambourines and go out in joyful dancing.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
Job's cry for a mediator who can lay his hand on both God and man, and his confidence that 'my Redeemer lives' and will stand on the earth, reaches forward to Jesus the living Redeemer.
How Job 22:23 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.