10 Lacking clothes, they go about naked;(A)
    they carry the sheaves,(B) but still go hungry.
11 They crush olives among the terraces[a];
    they tread the winepresses,(C) yet suffer thirst.(D)
12 The groans of the dying rise from the city,
    and the souls of the wounded cry out for help.(E)
    But God charges no one with wrongdoing.(F)

13 “There are those who rebel against the light,(G)
    who do not know its ways
    or stay in its paths.(H)
14 When daylight is gone, the murderer rises up,
    kills(I) the poor and needy,(J)
    and in the night steals forth like a thief.(K)
15 The eye of the adulterer(L) watches for dusk;(M)
    he thinks, ‘No eye will see me,’(N)
    and he keeps his face concealed.
16 In the dark, thieves break into houses,(O)
    but by day they shut themselves in;
    they want nothing to do with the light.(P)
17 For all of them, midnight is their morning;
    they make friends with the terrors(Q) of darkness.(R)

18 “Yet they are foam(S) on the surface of the water;(T)
    their portion of the land is cursed,(U)
    so that no one goes to the vineyards.(V)
19 As heat and drought snatch away the melted snow,(W)
    so the grave(X) snatches away those who have sinned.
20 The womb forgets them,
    the worm(Y) feasts on them;(Z)
the wicked are no longer remembered(AA)
    but are broken like a tree.(AB)
21 They prey on the barren and childless woman,
    and to the widow they show no kindness.(AC)
22 But God drags away the mighty by his power;(AD)
    though they become established,(AE) they have no assurance of life.(AF)
23 He may let them rest in a feeling of security,(AG)
    but his eyes(AH) are on their ways.(AI)
24 For a little while they are exalted, and then they are gone;(AJ)
    they are brought low and gathered up like all others;(AK)
    they are cut off like heads of grain.(AL)

25 “If this is not so, who can prove me false
    and reduce my words to nothing?”(AM)

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Footnotes

  1. Job 24:11 The meaning of the Hebrew for this word is uncertain.

13 “Woe(A) to him who builds(B) his palace by unrighteousness,
    his upper rooms by injustice,
making his own people work for nothing,
    not paying(C) them for their labor.

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“So I will come to put you on trial. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers,(A) adulterers(B) and perjurers,(C) against those who defraud laborers of their wages,(D) who oppress the widows(E) and the fatherless, and deprive the foreigners(F) among you of justice, but do not fear(G) me,” says the Lord Almighty.

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