Job - Chapter 24 | Good News Translation

  • 1. Why doesn't God set a time for judging, a day of justice for those who serve him?
  • 2. People move property lines to get more land; they steal sheep and put them with their own flocks.
  • 3. They take donkeys that belong to orphans, and keep a widow's ox till she pays her debts.
  • 4. They prevent the poor from getting their rights and force the needy to run and hide.
  • 5. So the poor, like wild donkeys, search for food in the dry wilderness; nowhere else can they find food for their children.
  • 6. They have to harvest fields they don't own, and gather grapes in vineyards of the wicked.
  • 7. At night they sleep with nothing to cover them, nothing to keep them from the cold.
  • 8. They are drenched by the rain that falls on the mountains, and they huddle beside the rocks for shelter.
  • 9. Evil people make slaves of fatherless infants and take the children of the poor in payment for debts.
  • 10. But the poor must go out with no clothes to protect them; they must go hungry while harvesting wheat.
  • 11. They press olives for oil, and grapes for wine, but they themselves are thirsty.
  • 12. In the cities the wounded and dying cry out, but God ignores their prayers.
  • 13. There are those who reject the light; they don't understand it or go where it leads.
  • 14. At dawn the murderer gets up and goes out to kill the poor, and at night he steals.
  • 15. The adulterer waits for twilight to come; he covers his face so that no one can see him.
  • 16. At night thieves break into houses, but by day they hide and avoid the light.
  • 17. They fear the light of day, but darkness holds no terror for them.
  • 18. The wicked are swept away by floods, and the land they own is under God's curse; they no longer go to work in their vineyards.
  • 19. As snow vanishes in heat and drought, so sinners vanish from the land of the living.
  • 20. Not even their mothers remember them now; they are eaten by worms and destroyed like fallen trees.
  • 21. That happens because they mistreated widows and showed no kindness to childless women.
  • 22. God, in his strength, destroys the mighty; God acts---and the wicked die.
  • 23. God may let them live secure, but keeps an eye on them all the time.
  • 24. For a while the wicked prosper, but then they wither like weeds, like stalks of grain that have been cut down.
  • 25. Can anyone deny that this is so? Can anyone prove that my words are not true?
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