Old Testament · Poetry and wisdom

Job chapter 24

Why does the Almighty for court? Why do the people who know him never live to see his days come?Men move the . They steal a flock and graze it out in the open.They drive off ’s donkey. They take ’s ox as security on a loan.They shove the needy off the road. The poor of the land go into hiding, all of them at once.Look at the poor — out in the wasteland, heading out to their work, scavenging for something to eat. The desert has to find food for their children.They cut fodder in a field that is not theirs. They pick over what is left in a guilty man’s vineyard.They spend the night , nothing to cover them in the cold.The mountain rain soaks them through, and with nowhere to shelter they hold on to the rock.They tear the child off the breast to settle a debt. They take the coat off a poor man’s back as security.So the poor go around naked, with nothing to wear, .They press out the oil inside the walls of the rich. They tread the winepresses and go thirsty.From inside the city the dying groan, the throats of the wounded cry out for help — and God .There are men . They never learned its ways. They never stayed on its paths.At first light the murderer gets up, kills the poor man and the man with nothing, and once it is dark he turns into a thief.The adulterer’s eye watches for dusk. , he tells himself, and he keeps his face covered.In the dark they of houses. By day they seal themselves in. They want nothing to do with the light.Morning, to every one of them, is . They are on easy terms with the terrors of that dark.Foam on the face of the water, that is all he is. His patch of ground lies under a curse. Nobody turns down the road to his vineyard.Drought and heat make off with the snowmelt, and does the same with .The womb that carried him forgets him. The worm finds him sweet. He is never brought to mind again, and the crooked man snaps like a tree.This is the man who feeds on and never does a widow any good.And God drags the strong off by sheer strength. He stands up, and no one is sure of his own life anymore.He lets a man feel safe, and the man leans on it, and the whole time his eyes are on the roads they walk.They are lifted up for a moment, and . They are brought down, gathered in like everyone else, cut off like the heads of grain.And if this is not so — who will and make my words come to nothing?