24:1 “Why are times not appointed by the Almighty? Why do those who know him not see his days?
24:2 Men move boundary stones; they seize the flock and pasture them.
24:3 They drive away the orphan’s donkey; they take the widow’s ox as a pledge.
24:4 They turn the needy from the pathway, and the poor of the land hide themselves together.
24:5 Like wild donkeys in the desert they go out to their labor, seeking diligently for food; the wasteland provides food for them and for their children.
24:6 They reap fodder in the field, and glean in the vineyard of the wicked.
24:7 They spend the night naked because they lack clothing; they have no covering against the cold.
24:8 They are soaked by mountain rains and huddle in the rocks because they lack shelter.
24:9 The fatherless child is snatched from the breast, the infant of the poor is taken as a pledge.
24:10 They go about naked, without clothes, and go hungry while they carry the sheaves.
24:11 They press out the oil among the olive rows; they tread the winepresses while they are thirsty.
24:12 From the city the dying groan, and the wounded cry out for help, but God charges no one with wrongdoing.
24:13 There are those who rebel against the light; they do not know its ways and they do not stay on its paths.
24:14 Before daybreak the murderer rises up; he kills the poor and the needy; in the night he is like a thief.
24:15 And the eye of the adulterer watches for the twilight, thinking, ‘No eye can see me,’ and covers his face with a mask.
24:16 In the dark the robber breaks into houses, but by day they shut themselves in; they do not know the light.
24:17 For all of them, the morning is to them like deep darkness; they are friends with the terrors of darkness.
24:18 “You say, ‘He is foam on the face of the waters; their portion of the land is cursed so that no one goes to their vineyard.