Job 24

Job’s Eighth Speech, Continued

24“Why are not times kept by Shaddai,

and why do not those who know him see his days?

²They^a remove border stones;

they seize flocks, and they pasture them.

³They drive away the donkey of orphans;

they take the widow’s ox as a pledge.

⁴They thrust the poor off the road;

the needy of the earth hide themselves together.^b

⁵“Look, like wild donkeys in the desert

they^c go out to their labor as searchers for the prey;

the wilderness is^d their^e food for the young.

⁶They reap their^f fodder in the field,

and they glean in the vineyard of the wicked.

⁷They spend the night naked, without^g clothing,

and they have no garment in the cold.

⁸They are wet from the rainstorm of the mountains,^h

and they cling to the rock withoutⁱ refuge.

⁹“They^j snatch the orphan from the breast,

and they take a pledge against the needy.^k

¹⁰They^l go about naked, without clothing,

and hungry, they carry the sheaves.^m

¹¹Between their terraces they press out oil;

they tread the presses, butⁿ they are thirsty.

¹²From the city people groan,

and the throat^o of the wounded cries for help;

yet^p God does not regard it as unseemly.^q

¹³“Those are among the ones rebelling against the light;

they do not recognize his ways,

and they do not stay in his paths.

¹⁴At dusk^r the murderer rises;

he kills the needy and the poor,

and in the night he is like a^s thief.

¹⁵And the eye of the adulterer waits for dusk,

saying, ‘No eye will see me,’^t

and he places a covering on his face.

¹⁶He digs through houses in the darkness;

by day they shut themselves in—

they do not know the light

¹⁷because morning likewise is to them deep darkness;

indeed, they know about the terrors of deep darkness.

¹⁸“He himself^u is swift on the water’s surface;

their portion is cursed in the land.

No one turns toward the path of their vineyards.^v

¹⁹Drought and heat snatch away the snow waters,

like Sheol snatches away those^w who have sinned.

²⁰The womb forgets him.

The maggot feasts on him until he is no longer remembered,

and wickedness is broken like a^x tree.

²¹He feeds on the barren, who does not have a child,

and does no good to the widow.

²²Yet^y he^z carries off the tyrants by his strength;

if he rises up, then^a he^b cannot be certain of life.^c

²³He^d gives security to him, and he is^e supported,

but^f his eyes are upon their ways.

²⁴They are exalted a little while, then^g they are gone.^h

And they are brought low; they are cut off like all others,

and like the heads of grain they wither away.

²⁵“And if it is not so, then who can prove me a liar

and reduce my word to nothing?”