VerseAI

NIV

Job 24

  1. 1<pb/><t>“Why does the Almighty not set times for judgment?</t> <t>Why must those who know him look in vain for such days?</t>
  2. 2<t>There are those who move boundary stones;</t> <t>they pasture flocks they have stolen.</t>
  3. 3<t>They drive away the orphan’s donkey</t> <t>and take the widow’s ox in pledge.</t>
  4. 4<t>They thrust the needy from the path</t> <t>and force all the poor of the land into hiding.</t>
  5. 5<t>Like wild donkeys in the desert,</t> <t>the poor go about their labor of foraging food;</t> <t>the wasteland provides food for their children.</t>
  6. 6<t>They gather fodder in the fields</t> <t>and glean in the vineyards of the wicked.</t>
  7. 7<t>Lacking clothes, they spend the night naked;</t> <t>they have nothing to cover themselves in the cold.</t>
  8. 8<t>They are drenched by mountain rains</t> <t>and hug the rocks for lack of shelter.</t>
  9. 9<t>The fatherless child is snatched from the breast;</t> <t>the infant of the poor is seized for a debt.</t>
  10. 10<t>Lacking clothes, they go about naked;</t> <t>they carry the sheaves, but still go hungry.</t>
  11. 11<t>They crush olives among the terraces<f>[40]</f>;</t> <t>they tread the winepresses, yet suffer thirst.</t>
  12. 12<t>The groans of the dying rise from the city,</t> <t>and the souls of the wounded cry out for help.</t> <t>But God charges no one with wrongdoing. <pb/></t>
  13. 13<t>“There are those who rebel against the light,</t> <t>who do not know its ways</t> <t>or stay in its paths.</t>
  14. 14<t>When daylight is gone, the murderer rises up,</t> <t>kills the poor and needy,</t> <t>and in the night steals forth like a thief.</t>
  15. 15<t>The eye of the adulterer watches for dusk;</t> <t>he thinks, ‘No eye will see me,’</t> <t>and he keeps his face concealed.</t>
  16. 16<t>In the dark, thieves break into houses,</t> <t>but by day they shut themselves in;</t> <t>they want nothing to do with the light.</t>
  17. 17<t>For all of them, midnight is their morning;</t> <t>they make friends with the terrors of darkness. <pb/></t>
  18. 18<t>“Yet they are foam on the surface of the water;</t> <t>their portion of the land is cursed,</t> <t>so that no one goes to the vineyards.</t>
  19. 19<t>As heat and drought snatch away the melted snow,</t> <t>so the grave snatches away those who have sinned.</t>
  20. 20<t>The womb forgets them,</t> <t>the worm feasts on them;</t> <t>the wicked are no longer remembered</t> <t>but are broken like a tree.</t>
  21. 21<t>They prey on the barren and childless woman,</t> <t>and to the widow they show no kindness.</t>
  22. 22<t>But God drags away the mighty by his power;</t> <t>though they become established, they have no assurance of life.</t>
  23. 23<t>He may let them rest in a feeling of security,</t> <t>but his eyes are on their ways.</t>
  24. 24<t>For a little while they are exalted, and then they are gone;</t> <t>they are brought low and gathered up like all others;</t> <t>they are cut off like heads of grain. <pb/></t>
  25. 25<t>“If this is not so, who can prove me false</t> <t>and reduce my words to nothing?”</t>