Job 24

“Why doesn’t the Almighty bring the wicked to judgment?
    Why must the godly wait for him in vain?

‘Why does the Almighty not set times for judgment?
    Why must those who know him look in vain for such days?

Evil people steal land by moving the boundary markers.
    They steal livestock and put them in their own pastures.

There are those who move boundary stones;
    they pasture flocks they have stolen.

They take the orphan’s donkey
    and demand the widow’s ox as security for a loan.

They drive away the orphan’s donkey
    and take the widow’s ox in pledge.

The poor are pushed off the path;
    the needy must hide together for safety.

They thrust the needy from the path
    and force all the poor of the land into hiding.

Like wild donkeys in the wilderness,
    the poor must spend all their time looking for food,
    searching even in the desert for food for their children.

Like wild donkeys in the desert,
    the poor go about their labour of foraging food;
    the wasteland provides food for their children.

They harvest a field they do not own,
    and they glean in the vineyards of the wicked.

They gather fodder in the fields
    and glean in the vineyards of the wicked.

All night they lie naked in the cold,
    without clothing or covering.

Lacking clothes, they spend the night naked;
    they have nothing to cover themselves in the cold.

They are soaked by mountain showers,
    and they huddle against the rocks for want of a home.

They are drenched by mountain rains
    and hug the rocks for lack of shelter.

“The wicked snatch a widow’s child from her breast,
    taking the baby as security for a loan.

The fatherless child is snatched from the breast;
    the infant of the poor is seized for a debt.

The poor must go about naked, without any clothing.
    They harvest food for others while they themselves are starving.

Lacking clothes, they go about naked;
    they carry the sheaves, but still go hungry.

They press out olive oil without being allowed to taste it,
    and they tread in the winepress as they suffer from thirst.

They crush olives among the terraces^[a];
    they tread the winepresses, yet suffer thirst.

The groans of the dying rise from the city,
    and the wounded cry for help,
    yet God ignores their moaning.

The groans of the dying rise from the city,
    and the souls of the wounded cry out for help.
    But God charges no one with wrongdoing.

“Wicked people rebel against the light.
    They refuse to acknowledge its ways
    or stay in its paths.

‘There are those who rebel against the light,
    who do not know its ways
    or stay in its paths.

The murderer rises in the early dawn
    to kill the poor and needy;
    at night he is a thief.

When daylight is gone, the murderer rises up,
    kills the poor and needy,
    and in the night steals forth like a thief.

The adulterer waits for the twilight,
    saying, ‘No one will see me then.’
    He hides his face so no one will know him.

The eye of the adulterer watches for dusk;
    he thinks, “No eye will see me,”
    and he keeps his face concealed.

Thieves break into houses at night
    and sleep in the daytime.
    They are not acquainted with the light.

In the dark, thieves break into houses,
    but by day they shut themselves in;
    they want nothing to do with the light.

The black night is their morning.
    They ally themselves with the terrors of the darkness.

For all of them, midnight is their morning;
    they make friends with the terrors of darkness.

“But they disappear like foam down a river.
    Everything they own is cursed,
    and they are afraid to enter their own vineyards.

‘Yet they are foam on the surface of the water;
    their portion of the land is cursed,
    so that no one goes to the vineyards.

The grave^[a] consumes sinners
    just as drought and heat consume snow.

As heat and drought snatch away the melted snow,
    so the grave snatches away those who have sinned.

Their own mothers will forget them.
    Maggots will find them sweet to eat.
No one will remember them.
    Wicked people are broken like a tree in the storm.

The womb forgets them,
    the worm feasts on them;
the wicked are no longer remembered
    but are broken like a tree.

They cheat the woman who has no son to help her.
    They refuse to help the needy widow.

They prey on the barren and childless woman,
    and to the widow they show no kindness.

“God, in his power, drags away the rich.
    They may rise high, but they have no assurance of life.

But God drags away the mighty by his power;
    though they become established, they have no assurance of life.

They may be allowed to live in security,
    but God is always watching them.

He may let them rest in a feeling of security,
    but his eyes are on their ways.

And though they are great now,
    in a moment they will be gone like all others,
    cut off like heads of grain.

For a little while they are exalted, and then they are gone;
    they are brought low and gathered up like all others;
    they are cut off like ears of corn.

Can anyone claim otherwise?
    Who can prove me wrong?”