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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 like a broken 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?”