The CleanSlate Bible

25 verses

Job Chapter 24

¹"Why aren't times laid up by the Almighty?
Why don't those who know him see his days?
²There are people who remove the landmarks.
They violently take away flocks, and feed them.
³They drive away the donkey of the fatherless,
and they take the widow's ox for a pledge.
⁴They drive the needy off the road.
The poor of the land hide together.
⁵Look, wild donkeys in the desert,
go out to their work, searching for food.
The wilderness yields them food for the young.
⁶They reap his fodder in the field.
They glean in the vineyard of the wicked.
⁷They lie all night naked without clothing,
and have no covering in the cold.
⁸They are wet with the showers of the mountains,
and embrace the rock for lack of a shelter.
⁹There are those who pluck the fatherless from the breast,
and take a pledge from the poor,
¹⁰they go around naked without clothing;
hungry, they carry the sheaves.
¹¹Between their rows they make oil;
they tread wine presses, [but] go thirsty.
¹²From out of the populous city, men groan.
The soul of the wounded cries out,
yet God doesn't regard the folly.

¹³"These are of those who rebel against the light.
They don't know its ways,
nor stay in its paths.
¹⁴The murderer rises with the light.
He kills the poor and needy.
In the night he is like a thief.
¹⁵The eye also of the adulterer waits for the twilight,
saying, 'No eye will see me.'
He disguises his face.
¹⁶In the dark they dig through houses.
They shut themselves up in the daytime.
They don't know the light.
¹⁷For the morning is to all of them like death-shadow,
for they know the terrors of the death-shadow.

¹⁸"They are foam on the surface of the waters.
Their portion is cursed in the earth.
They don't turn into the way of the vineyards.
¹⁹Drought and heat consume the snow waters,
so does Sheol those who have sinned.
²⁰The womb forgets him.
The worm finds him sweet.
He is remembered no more.
Unrighteousness is broken like a tree.
²¹He feeds on the barren who don't bear.
He shows no kindness to the widow.
²²Yet He draws the mighty [away] by his power.
He rises up, though he does not trust in life.
²³He gives them security, and they rest in it.
His eyes are on their ways.
²⁴They are exalted for a little [while], then they are gone.
Yes, they are brought low, they are taken away as all others,
and are cut off as the tops of the ears of grain.
²⁵If it isn't so now, who will prove me a liar,
and make my speech worth nothing?"