Job 24 :: New International Version (NIV)

Job 24:1

Job 24:1“Why does the Almighty not set times for judgment? Why must those who know him look in vain for such days?

Job 24:2

Job 24:2There are those who move boundary stones; they pasture flocks they have stolen.

Job 24:3

Job 24:3They drive away the orphan’s donkey and take the widow’s ox in pledge.

Job 24:4

Job 24:4They thrust the needy from the path and force all the poor of the land into hiding.

Job 24:5

Job 24:5Like wild donkeys in the desert, the poor go about their labor of foraging food; the wasteland provides food for their children.

Job 24:6

Job 24:6They gather fodder in the fields and glean in the vineyards of the wicked.

Job 24:7

Job 24:7Lacking clothes, they spend the night naked; they have nothing to cover themselves in the cold.

Job 24:8

Job 24:8They are drenched by mountain rains and hug the rocks for lack of shelter.

Job 24:9

Job 24:9The fatherless child is snatched from the breast; the infant of the poor is seized for a debt.

Job 24:10

Job 24:10Lacking clothes, they go about naked; they carry the sheaves, but still go hungry.

Job 24:11

Job 24:11They crush olives among the terraces[fn]; they tread the winepresses, yet suffer thirst.

Job 24:12

Job 24:12The groans of the dying rise from the city, and the souls of the wounded cry out for help. But God charges no one with wrongdoing.

Job 24:13

Job 24:13“There are those who rebel against the light, who do not know its ways or stay in its paths.

Job 24:14

Job 24:14When daylight is gone, the murderer rises up, kills the poor and needy, and in the night steals forth like a thief.

Job 24:15

Job 24:15The eye of the adulterer watches for dusk; he thinks, ‘No eye will see me,’ and he keeps his face concealed.

Job 24:16

Job 24:16In the dark, thieves break into houses, but by day they shut themselves in; they want nothing to do with the light.

Job 24:17

Job 24:17For all of them, midnight is their morning; they make friends with the terrors of darkness.

Job 24:18

Job 24:18“Yet they are foam on the surface of the water; their portion of the land is cursed, so that no one goes to the vineyards.

Job 24:19

Job 24:19As heat and drought snatch away the melted snow, so the grave snatches away those who have sinned.

Job 24:20

Job 24:20The womb forgets them, the worm feasts on them; the wicked are no longer remembered but are broken like a tree.

Job 24:21

Job 24:21They prey on the barren and childless woman, and to the widow they show no kindness.

Job 24:22

Job 24:22But God drags away the mighty by his power; though they become established, they have no assurance of life.

Job 24:23

Job 24:23He may let them rest in a feeling of security, but his eyes are on their ways.

Job 24:24

Job 24:24For a little while they are exalted, and then they are gone; they are brought low and gathered up like all others; they are cut off like heads of grain.

Job 24:25

Job 24:25“If this is not so, who can prove me false and reduce my words to nothing?”

See the NIV Preface (Especially for Parenthesis, Brackets, & Asterisks).

NIV Footnotes

(24:11)

The meaning of the Hebrew for this word is uncertain.

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For more information on this translation, see the NIV Preface.