24
Job continued his reply
1 “◄Why does Almighty God not set a time when he will judge evil people?/I do not understand why Almighty God does not set a time when he will judge evil people.► [RHQ]
Those who know him never [RHQ] see him do that!
2 Some evil people remove the markers of boundaries of other people’s land, in order to steal their land;
they seize/steal other people’s sheep and put them in their own pastures.
3 Some ◄take away/steal► the donkeys that belong to orphans,
and they take widow’s oxen to guarantee that the widows will pay back the money that they loaned to those widows.
4 Some shove poor people off the road (OR, prevent poor people from ◄obtaining their rights/being treated justly►),
and they force poor people to find places to hide from them.
5 The result is that poor people have to search for food in the desert
like wild donkeys do.
6 The poor people harvest left-over grain in other people’s fields,
and gather grapes from vineyards that belong to wicked men.
7 During the night they have nothing to cover their bodies,
nothing to keep them warm.
8 When it rains on the mountains, the poor people become very wet,
so they huddle under the rock ledges to be protected from the rain.
9 Some evil men snatch infants away from their widowed mothers [SYN],
and they say ‘I will return your babies to you when you repay the money that I lent to you.’
10 But the poor people walk around with no clothes on;
they are hungry while they are working to carry other people’s bundles of grain to the places where their grain will be threshed.
11 Poor people press olives to make olive oil;
they tread on grapes to make juice for wine,
but they are not allowed to drink any of it when they become thirsty.
12 In the cities, people who are wounded and dying cry out to God for help,
but God does not heed their prayers.
13 Some wicked people avoid the light because they do evil things in the dark;
they do not walk on roads that are lighted.
14 Murderers steal things during the night,
and then they arise before dawn in order that they may go out again and kill needy [DOU] people.
15 Those who want to commit adultery wait for twilight/evening;
they say ‘I do not want anyone to see me,’ so they keep their faces covered.
16 It is during the night that robbers break into houses to steal things,
but during the day they hide because they want to avoid being seen in the light.
17 All of those people want to do their evil things at night, not in the morning when it is light,
because they are not afraid of the things that happen during the night that terrify others.”
(Final speech by Zophar)
18 “But it is wicked people who are swept/carried away by floods,
and God curses the land that they own,
and no one goes to work in their vineyards.
19 Just like the snow melts away when it is hot and there is no rain,
those who have sinned disappear into the place where dead people are.
20 Not even their mothers remember them now;
wicked people are destroyed like trees that are cut down,
and maggots eat their corpses.
21 They mistreat women who have been unable to give birth to children and women who no longer have children to take care of them,
and they never do good things for widows.
22 But God, by his power, gets rid of mighty/influential people.
God acts and causes the wicked people to die.
23 God allows them to think that they are secure and safe,
but he is watching [MTY] them all the time.
24 They prosper for a little while,
and then suddenly they are gone;
they disappear like weeds wither and die;
they are like [SIM] stalks of grain that have been cut off.
25 If this is not true, is there [RHQ] anyone who will show that I am a liar
and prove that what I have said is not true?”