With friends like these...

Job 3-12 shifts from a debate between eternal enemies to a dialogue between good friends. Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar first try to comfort Job, but later think they can try to fix Job's problems, or at least tell Job how to fix his own problem. This is no help for Job, and he responds to his friends by telling them that.

The debate is not over. Not only are there two more rounds of arguments to go, but we still think that way in large measure today because it is generally true. God does punish the wicked, and there is no one who is sinless. But the world does not revolve around us, and God's desire is to refine us to make us like Him, not to confirm us in our spiritual poverty and blindness. We do not suffer simply because we have done evil in the past; we suffer so that God will be glorified through us.