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Job 24 (CEV)

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¹ Why doesn't God set a time for court? Why don't his people know where he can be found? ² Sinners remove boundary markers and take care of sheep they have stolen. ³ They cheat orphans and widows by taking their donkeys and oxen. ⁴ The poor are trampled and forced to hide ⁵ in the desert, where they and their children must live like wild donkeys and search for food. ⁶ If they want grain or grapes, they must go to the property of these sinners. ⁷ They sleep naked in the cold, because they have no cover, ⁸ and during a storm their only shelters are caves among the rocky cliffs. ⁹ Children whose fathers have died are taken from their mothers as payment for a debt. ¹⁰ Then they are forced to work naked in the grain fields because they have no clothes, and they go hungry. ¹¹ They crush olives to make oil and grapes to make wine-- but still they go thirsty. ¹² And along the city streets, the wounded and dying cry out, yet God does nothing. ¹³ Some rebel and refuse to follow the light. ¹⁴ Soon after sunset they murder the poor and the needy, and at night they steal. ¹⁵ Others wait for the dark, thinking they won't be seen if they sleep with the wife or husband of someone else. ¹⁶ Robbers hide during the day, then break in after dark because they reject the light. ¹⁷ They prefer night to day, since the terrors of the night are their friends. ¹⁸ Those sinners are filthy foam on the surface of the water. And so, their fields and vineyards will fall under a curse and won't produce. ¹⁹ Just as the heat of summer swallows the snow, the world of the dead swallows those who sin. ²⁰ Forgotten here on earth, and with their power broken, they taste sweet to worms. ²¹ Sinners take advantage of widows and other helpless women. ²² But God's mighty strength destroys those in power. Even if they seem successful, they are doomed to fail. ²³ God may let them feel secure, but they are never out of his sight. ²⁴ Great for a while; gone forever! Sinners are mowed down like weeds, then they wither and die. ²⁵ If I haven't spoken the truth, then prove me wrong.