An Illusion of Security

24 1-12 “But if Judgment Day isn’t hidden from the Almighty,
    why are we kept in the dark?
There are people out there getting by with murder—
    stealing and lying and cheating.
They rip off the poor
    and exploit the unfortunate,
Push the helpless into the ditch,
    bully the weak so that they fear for their lives.
The poor, like stray dogs and cats,
    scavenge for food in back alleys.
They sort through the garbage of the rich,
    eke out survival on handouts.
Homeless, they shiver through cold nights on the street;
    they’ve no place to lay their heads.
Exposed to the weather, wet and frozen,
    they huddle in makeshift shelters.
Nursing mothers have their babies snatched from them;
    the infants of the poor are kidnapped and sold.
They go about patched and threadbare;
    even the hard workers go hungry.
No matter how backbreaking their labor,
    they can never make ends meet.
People are dying right and left, groaning in torment.
    The wretched cry out for help
    and God does nothing, acts like nothing’s wrong!

13-17 “Then there are those who avoid light at all costs,
    who scorn the light-filled path.
When the sun goes down, the murderer gets up—
    kills the poor and robs the defenseless.
Sexual predators can’t wait for nightfall,
    thinking, ‘No one can see us now.’
Burglars do their work at night,
    but keep well out of sight through the day.
    They want nothing to do with light.
Deep darkness is morning for that bunch;
    they make the terrors of darkness their companions in crime.

Read full chapter

11 They crush olives among the terraces[a];
    they tread the winepresses,(A) yet suffer thirst.(B)
12 The groans of the dying rise from the city,
    and the souls of the wounded cry out for help.(C)
    But God charges no one with wrongdoing.(D)

13 “There are those who rebel against the light,(E)
    who do not know its ways
    or stay in its paths.(F)

Read full chapter

Footnotes

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