If they obey and serve Him, then they end their days in prosperity and their years in happiness.
Parallel translations
- WEB If they listen and serve him, they shall spend their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasures.
- KJV If they obey and serve him, they shall spend their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasures.
- NKJV If they obey and serve Him, They shall spend their days in prosperity, And their years in pleasures.
- NASB “If they listen and serve Him, They will end their days in prosperity, And their years in happiness.
- NLT “If they listen and obey God, they will be blessed with prosperity throughout their lives. All their years will be pleasant.
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
If they listen and serve God, they will spend their days in prosperity and pleasant years. Obedience leads to blessing.
Overview
Elihu states the blessed outcome of heeding God's correction: a life of prosperity and well-being. This reflects the general principle, prominent in wisdom literature, that obedience tends toward flourishing (Deut. 30:15-16; Ps. 1). While not an absolute formula in a fallen world, it points to the true and lasting blessedness found in fellowship with God through Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- Jer 7:23but this is what I commanded them: Obey Me, and I will be your God, and you will be My people. You must walk in all the ways I have commanded you, so that it may go well with you.
- Isa 1:19If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best of the land.
- Jer 26:13So now, correct your ways and deeds, and obey the voice of the LORD your God, so that He might relent of the disaster He has pronounced against you.
- Deut 4:30When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, then in later days you will return to the LORD your God and listen to His voice.
- Heb 11:8By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, without knowing where he was going.
- Job 22:23If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored. If you remove injustice from your tents
- Jas 5:5You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in the day of slaughter.
- Rev 18:7As much as she has glorified herself and lived in luxury, give her the same measure of torment and grief. In her heart she says, ‘I sit as queen; I am not a widow and will never see grief.’
- Job 22:21Reconcile now and be at peace with Him; thereby good will come to you.
- Job 42:12So the LORD blessed Job’s latter days more than his first. He owned 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 female donkeys.
- Job 11:13–19As for you, if you direct your heart and lift up your hands to Him,
- Rom 6:17But thanks be to God that, though you once were slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were committed.
- Eccl 9:2–3It is the same for all: There is a common fate for the righteous and the wicked, for the good and the bad, for the clean and the unclean, for the one who sacrifices and the one who does not. As it is for the good, so it is for the sinner; as it is for the one who makes a vow, so it is for the one who refuses to take a vow.
- Job 21:11They send forth their little ones like a flock; their children skip about,
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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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 36:11 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.