Warning to Rich Oppressors

5 Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you. ² Your riches have rotted, and your clothes are moth-eaten.^{(A) 3} Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you, and it will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure^[a] during the last days. ⁴ Listen! The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.^{(B) 5} You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have nourished your hearts in a day of slaughter.^{(C) 6} You have condemned and murdered the righteous one, who does not resist you.

¹⁹ And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’^{(A) 20} But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’^{(B) 21} So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”^(C)

Job Complains of Violence on the Earth

²² We know that the whole creation has been groaning together as it suffers together the pains of labor,

³ This is an evil in all that happens under the sun, that the same fate comes to everyone. Moreover, the hearts of humans are full of evil; madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead.^(A)