Job 24

Jubilee Bible 2000

24 ¶ Why, seeing that times are not hidden from the Almighty, do those that know him not see his days?

² Some remove the landmarks; they violently take away flocks and feed thereof.

³ They drive away the ass of the fatherless; they take the widow’s ox for a pledge.

⁴ They turn the needy out of the way; and all the poor of the earth hide themselves from them.

⁵ Behold, as wild asses in the desert, they go forth to their work, rising early for a prey; the wilderness yields food for them and for their children.

⁶ In the field they reap their fodder, and the wicked gather the vintage that is not theirs.

⁷ They cause the naked to lodge without clothing, that they have no covering in the cold.

⁸ They are wet with the floods of the mountains and embrace the rock for want of a covering.

⁹ They pluck the fatherless from the breast and take a pledge of the poor.

¹⁰ They cause the naked to go without clothing, and they take away the sheaves from the hungry.

¹¹ They press oil within their walls and tread their winepresses and suffer thirst.

¹² Men groan from out of the city, and the souls of the dead cry out; yet God did not hinder them.

¹³ ¶ They are among those that rebel against the light; they have never known its ways nor abided in its paths.

¹⁴ The murderer rises with the light, kills the poor and the needy, and in the night is as a thief.

¹⁵ The eye of the adulterer waits for the twilight, saying, No eye shall see me; and disguises his face.

¹⁶ In the dark they dig through houses, which they had marked for themselves in the daytime; they do not know the light.

¹⁷ For the morning is to them even as the shadow of death; if they are known, the terrors of the shadow of death come over them.

¹⁸ ¶ They are swift upon the waters; their portion is cursed in the earth; they never come by the way of the vineyards.

¹⁹ Drought and heat consume the snow waters; so does Sheol consume those who have sinned.

²⁰ The Merciful One shall forget them; the worm shall feed sweetly on them; they shall never be remembered again; and iniquity shall be broken as a tree.

²¹ He afflicted the barren woman that did not conceive and never did good unto the widow.

²² He furthered the violent with his power; he did not lend to anyone in his life.

²³ If he gave credit to some to take them over, his eyes were upon their ways.

²⁴ They were exalted for a little while, but are gone and brought low; they are taken out of the way as all others and cut off as the tops of the heads of grain.

²⁵ And if it is not so now, who will make me a liar or reduce my speech to nothing?