If thou return to the Almighty, thou shalt be built up, thou shalt put away iniquity far from thy tabernacles.
Parallel translations
- WEB If you return to the Almighty, you shall be built up, if you put away unrighteousness far from your tents.
- BSB If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored. If you remove injustice from your tents
- 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 11:13–14If thou prepare thine heart, and stretch out thine hands toward him;
- Zech 1:3Therefore say thou unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Turn ye unto me, saith the LORD of hosts, and I will turn unto you, saith the LORD of hosts.
- Job 8:5–6If thou wouldest seek unto God betimes, and make thy supplication to the Almighty;
- Isa 55:6–7Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:
- Hos 14:1–2O Israel, return unto the LORD thy God; for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity.
- Acts 26:20But shewed first unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judaea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance.
- Zech 5:3–4Then said he unto me, This is the curse that goeth forth over the face of the whole earth: for every one that stealeth shall be cut off as on this side according to it; and every one that sweareth shall be cut off as on that side according to it.
- 2 Tim 2:19Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.
- Josh 7:13–16Up, sanctify the people, and say, Sanctify yourselves against to morrow: for thus saith the LORD God of Israel, There is an accursed thing in the midst of thee, O Israel: thou canst not stand before thine enemies, until ye take away the accursed thing from among you.
- Jude 1:20But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost,
- Isa 33:15He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil;
- Col 2:7Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.
- Job 18:15It shall dwell in his tabernacle, because it is none of his: brimstone shall be scattered upon his habitation.
- Isa 19:22And the LORD shall smite Egypt: he shall smite and heal it: and they shall return even to the LORD, and he shall be intreated of them, and shall heal them.
- Job 12:14Behold, he breaketh down, and it cannot be built again: he shutteth up a man, and there can be no opening.
- Isa 31:6Turn ye unto him from whom the children of Israel have deeply revolted.
- Jer 31:4Again I will build thee, and thou shalt be built, O virgin of Israel: thou shalt again be adorned with thy tabrets, and shalt go forth in the dances of them that make merry.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
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.