Job - Chapter 24 | New International Version

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