24
Job: Judgment for the Wicked
1 “Why does the Almighty not reserve times for judgment?
Why may those who know Him never see His days?
2 Men move boundary stones;
they pasture stolen flocks.
3 They drive away the donkey of the fatherless
and take the widow’s ox in pledge.
4 They push the needy off the road
and force all the poor of the land into hiding.
5 Indeed, like wild donkeys in the desert,
the poor go to work foraging for food;
the wasteland is food for their children.
6 They gather fodder in the fields
and glean the vineyards of the wicked.
7 Without clothing, they spend the night naked;
they have no covering against the cold.
8 Drenched by mountain rains,
they huddle against the rocks for want of shelter.
9 The fatherless infant is snatched from the breast;
the nursing child of the poor is seized for a debt.
10 Without clothing, they wander about naked.
They carry the sheaves, but still go hungry.
11 They crush olives within their walls;
they tread the winepresses, but go thirsty.
12 From the city, men groan,
and the souls of the wounded cry out,
yet God charges no one with wrongdoing.
13 Then there are those who rebel against the light,
not knowing its ways or staying on its paths.
14 When daylight is gone, the murderer rises
to kill the poor and needy;
in the night he is like a thief.
15 The eye of the adulterer watches for twilight.
Thinking, ‘No eye will see me,’ he covers his face.
16 In the dark they dig through houses;
by day they shut themselves in,
never to experience the light.
17 For to them, deep darkness is their morning;
surely they are friends with the terrors of darkness!
18 They are but foam on the surface of the water;
their portion of the land is cursed,
so that no one turns toward their vineyards.
19 As drought and heat consume the melting snow,
so Sheol steals those who have sinned.
20 The womb forgets them;
the worm feeds on them;
they are remembered no more.
So injustice is like a broken tree.
21 They prey on the barren and childless,
and show no kindness to the widow.
22 Yet by His power, God drags away the mighty;
though rising up, they have no assurance of life.
23 He gives them a sense of security,
but His eyes are on their ways.
24 They are exalted for a moment,
then they are gone;
they are brought low and gathered up like all others;
they are cut off like heads of grain.
25 If this is not so, then who can prove me a liar
and reduce my words to nothing?”