Capítulo 24

1 - "Why does the Almighty not set times for judgment? Why must those who know him look in vain for such days?

2 - There are those who move boundary stones; they pasture flocks they have stolen.

3 - They drive away the orphan's donkey and take the widow's ox in pledge.

4 - They thrust the needy from the path and force all the poor of the land into hiding.

5 - Like wild donkeys in the desert, the poor go about their labor of foraging food; the wasteland provides food for their children.

6 - They gather fodder in the fields and glean in the vineyards of the wicked.

7 - Lacking clothes, they spend the night naked; they have nothing to cover themselves in the cold.

8 - They are drenched by mountain rains and hug the rocks for lack of shelter.

9 - The fatherless child is snatched from the breast; the infant of the poor is seized for a debt.

10 - Lacking clothes, they go about naked; they carry the sheaves, but still go hungry.

11 - They crush olives among the terraces The meaning of the Hebrew for this word is uncertain.; they tread the winepresses, yet suffer thirst.

12 - The groans of the dying rise from the city, and the souls of the wounded cry out for help. But God charges no one with wrongdoing.

13 - "There are those who rebel against the light, who do not know its ways or stay in its paths.

14 - When daylight is gone, the murderer rises up, kills the poor and needy, and in the night steals forth like a thief.

15 - The eye of the adulterer watches for dusk; he thinks, 'No eye will see me,' and he keeps his face concealed.

16 - In the dark, thieves break into houses, but by day they shut themselves in; they want nothing to do with the light.

17 - For all of them, midnight is their morning; they make friends with the terrors of darkness.

18 - "Yet they are foam on the surface of the water; their portion of the land is cursed, so that no one goes to the vineyards.

19 - As heat and drought snatch away the melted snow, so the grave snatches away those who have sinned.

20 - The womb forgets them, the worm feasts on them; the wicked are no longer remembered but are broken like a tree.

21 - They prey on the barren and childless woman, and to the widow they show no kindness.

22 - But God drags away the mighty by his power; though they become established, they have no assurance of life.

23 - He may let them rest in a feeling of security, but his eyes are on their ways.

24 - For a little while they are exalted, and 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, who can prove me false and reduce my words to nothing?"