2.7 KiB
Job Asks Why the Wicked Are Not Punished
Chapter 24
- "Why doesn't the Almighty bring the wicked to judgment?
Why must the godly wait for him in vain?
- Evil people steal land by moving the boundary markers.
They steal livestock and put them in their own pastures.
- They take the orphan's donkey
and demand the widow's ox as security for a loan.
- The poor are pushed off the path;
the needy must hide together for safety.
- Like wild donkeys in the wilderness,
the poor must spend all their time looking for food,
searching even in the desert for food for their children.
- They harvest a field they do not own,
and they glean in the vineyards of the wicked.
- All night they lie naked in the cold,
without clothing or covering.
- They are soaked by mountain showers,
and they huddle against the rocks for want of a home.
- "The wicked snatch a widow's child from her breast,
taking the baby as security for a loan.
- The poor must go about naked, without any clothing.
They harvest food for others while they themselves are starving.
- They press out olive oil without being allowed to taste it,
and they tread in the winepress as they suffer from thirst.
- The groans of the dying rise from the city,
and the wounded cry for help,
yet God ignores their moaning.
- "Wicked people rebel against the light.
They refuse to acknowledge its ways
or stay in its paths.
- The murderer rises in the early dawn
to kill the poor and needy;
at night he is a thief.
- The adulterer waits for the twilight,
saying, 'No one will see me then.'
He hides his face so no one will know him.
- Thieves break into houses at night
and sleep in the daytime.
They are not acquainted with the light.
- The black night is their morning.
They ally themselves with the terrors of the darkness.
- "But they disappear like foam down a river.
Everything they own is cursed,
and they are afraid to enter their own vineyards.
- The grave consumes sinners
just as drought and heat consume snow.
- Their own mothers will forget them.
Maggots will find them sweet to eat.
No one will remember them.
Wicked people are broken like a tree in the storm.
- They cheat the woman who has no son to help her.
They refuse to help the needy widow.
- "God, in his power, drags away the rich.
They may rise high, but they have no assurance of life.
- They may be allowed to live in security,
but God is always watching them.
- And though they are great now,
in a moment they will be gone like all others,
cut off like heads of grain.
- Can anyone claim otherwise?
Who can prove me wrong?"