Job 24

Job Complains of Violence on the Earth

²⁴“Why are times not kept by the Almighty,^x

and why do those who know him never see his days?^*

²The wicked^y remove landmarks;

they seize flocks and pasture them.^*

³They drive away the donkey of the orphan;

they take the widow’s ox for a pledge.^*

⁴They thrust the needy off the road;

the poor of the earth all hide themselves.^*

⁵Like wild asses in the desert

they go out to their toil,

scavenging in the wasteland

food for their young.^*

⁶They reap in a field not their own,

and they glean in the vineyard of the wicked.

⁷They lie all night naked, without clothing,

and have no covering in the cold.^*

⁸They are wet with the rain of the mountains

and cling to the rock for want of shelter.^*

⁹“There are those who snatch the orphan child from the breast

and take as a pledge the infant of the poor.^*

¹⁰They go about naked, without clothing;

though hungry, they carry the sheaves;

¹¹between their terraces^z they press out oil;

they tread the winepresses but suffer thirst.

¹²From the city the dying groan,

and the throat of the wounded cries for help;

yet God pays no attention to their prayer.^*

¹³“There are those who rebel against the light,

who are not acquainted with its ways

and do not stay in its paths.^*

¹⁴The murderer rises at dusk

to kill the poor and needy

and in the night is like a thief.^*

¹⁵The eye of the adulterer also waits for the twilight,

saying, ‘No eye will see me,’

and he disguises his face.^*

¹⁶In the dark they dig through houses;

by day they shut themselves up;

they do not know the light.^*

¹⁷For deep darkness is morning to all of them;

for they are friends with the terrors of deep darkness.^*

¹⁸“Swift are they on the face of the waters;

their portion in the land is cursed;

no treader turns toward their vineyards.^*

¹⁹Drought and heat snatch away the snow waters;

so does Sheol those who have sinned.^*

²⁰The womb forgets them;

the worm finds them sweet;

they are no longer remembered,

so wickedness is broken like a tree.^*

²¹“They harm^a the childless woman

and do no good to the widow.^*

²²Yet God^b prolongs the life of the mighty by his power;

they rise up when they despair of life.^*

²³He gives them security, and they are supported;

his eyes are upon their ways.^*

²⁴They are exalted a little while and then are gone;

they wither and fade like the mallow;^c

they are cut off like the heads of grain.^*

²⁵If it is not so, who will prove me a liar

and show that there is nothing in what I say?”