Job

¹ Why must those who know him look in vain for such days?

² they pasture flocks they have stolen.

³ and take the widow’s ox in pledge.

⁴ and force all the poor of the land into hiding.

⁵ the poor go about their labor of foraging food; the wasteland provides food for their children.

⁶ and glean in the vineyards of the wicked.

⁷ they have nothing to cover themselves in the cold.

⁸ and hug the rocks for lack of shelter.

⁹ the infant of the poor is seized for a debt.

¹⁰ they carry the sheaves, but still go hungry.

¹¹ they tread the winepresses, yet suffer thirst.

¹² and the souls of the wounded cry out for help. But God charges no one with wrongdoing.

¹³ who do not know its ways or stay in its paths.

¹⁴ and kills the poor and needy; in the night he steals forth like a thief.

¹⁵ he thinks, ‘No eye will see me,’ and he keeps his face concealed.

¹⁶ but by day they shut themselves in; they want nothing to do with the light.

¹⁷ they make friends with the terrors of darkness.

¹⁸ their portion of the land is cursed, so that no one goes to the vineyards.

¹⁹ so the grave snatches away those who have sinned.

²⁰ the worm feasts on them; evil men are no longer remembered but are broken like a tree.

²¹ and to the widow show no kindness.

²² though they become established, they have no assurance of life.

²³ but his eyes are on their ways.

²⁴ they are brought low and gathered up like all others; they are cut off like heads of grain.

²⁵ and reduce my words to nothing?”