Job 24

Job: Judgment for the Wicked

¹ “Why does the Almighty not reserve times for judgment? Why may those who know Him never see His days?

² Men move boundary stones; they pasture stolen flocks.

³ They drive away the donkey of the fatherless and take the widow’s ox in pledge.

⁴ They push the needy off the road and force all the poor of the land into hiding.

⁵ Indeed, like wild donkeys in the desert, the poor go to work foraging for food; the wasteland is food for their children.

⁶ They gather fodder in the fields and glean the vineyards of the wicked.

⁷ Without clothing, they spend the night naked; they have no covering against the cold.

⁸ Drenched by mountain rains, they huddle against the rocks for want of shelter.

⁹ The fatherless infant is snatched from the breast; the nursing child of the poor is seized for a debt.

¹⁰ Without clothing, they wander about naked. They carry the sheaves, but still go hungry.

¹¹ They crush olives within their walls; they tread the winepresses, but go thirsty.

¹² From the city, men groan, and the souls of the wounded cry out, yet God charges no one with wrongdoing.

¹³ Then there are those who rebel against the light, not knowing its ways or staying on its paths.

¹⁴ When daylight is gone, the murderer rises to kill the poor and needy; in the night he is like a thief.

¹⁵ The eye of the adulterer watches for twilight. Thinking, ‘No eye will see me,’ he covers his face.

¹⁶ In the dark they dig through houses; by day they shut themselves in, never to experience the light.

¹⁷ For to them, deep darkness is their morning; surely they are friends with the terrors of darkness!

¹⁸ They are but foam on the surface of the water; their portion of the land is cursed, so that no one turns toward their vineyards.

¹⁹ As drought and heat consume the melting snow, so Sheol steals those who have sinned.

²⁰ The womb forgets them; the worm feeds on them; they are remembered no more. So injustice is broken like a tree.

²¹ They prey on the barren and childless, and show no kindness to the widow.

²² Yet by His power, God drags away the mighty; though rising up, they have no assurance of life.

²³ He gives them a sense of security, but His eyes are on their ways.

²⁴ They are exalted for a moment, 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, then who can prove me a liar and reduce my words to nothing?”