Job 24:1-25 - Job's Eighth Speech, Continued

¹ Why, seeing times are not hidden from the Almighty, do they that know him not see his days? ² Some remove the landmarks; they violently take away flocks, and feed on them. ³ They drive away the donkey of the fatherless, they take the widow's ox for a pledge. ⁴ They drive the needy off the road: the poor of the earth hide themselves together. ⁵ Behold, as wild donkeys in the desert, go they forth to their work; rising early for a prey: the wilderness yields food for them and for their children. ⁶ They reap every one his grain in the field: and they gather the vineyard of the wicked. ⁷ They cause the naked to lodge without clothing, that they have no covering in the cold. ⁸ They are wet with the showers of the mountains, and embrace the rock for want of a shelter. ⁹ They pluck the fatherless from the breast, and take a pledge from the poor. ¹⁰ They cause him to go naked without clothing, and they take away the sheaves from the hungry; ¹¹ Who make oil within their walls, and tread their winepresses, yet suffer thirst. ¹² Men groan from out of the city, and the soul of the wounded cries out: yet God charges not folly to them.

¹³ They are of those that rebel against the light; they know not its ways, nor abide in its paths. ¹⁴ The murderer rising with the light kills the poor and needy, and in the night is as a thief. ¹⁵ The eye also 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 know not the light. ¹⁷ For the morning is to them even as the shadow of death: if one recognizes them, they are in the terrors of the shadow of death.

¹⁸ They are swift as the waters; their portion is cursed in the earth: no one turns into the way of the vineyards. ¹⁹ Drought and heat consume the snow waters: so does the grave those who have sinned. ²⁰ The womb shall forget him; the worm shall feed sweetly on him; he shall be no more remembered; and wickedness shall be broken as a tree. ²¹ He evil treats the barren that bears not: and does not good to the widow. ²² He draws also the mighty with his power: he rises up, but no man is sure of life. ²³ Though it be given him to be in safety, he rests; yet his eyes are upon their ways. ²⁴ They are 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 ears of grain.

²⁵ And if it be not so now, who will make me a liar, and make my speech worth nothing?