They thrust the poor off the road; the poor of the earth all hide themselves.
Behold, like wild donkeys in the desert the poor go out to their toil, seeking game; the wasteland yields food for their children.
They gather their fodder in the field, and they glean the vineyard of the wicked man.
They lie all night naked, without clothing, and have no covering in the cold.
They are wet with the rain of the mountains and cling to the rock for lack of shelter.
(There are those who snatch the fatherless child from the breast, and they take a pledge against the poor.)
They go about naked, without clothing; hungry, they carry the sheaves;
among the olive rows of the wicked they make oil; they tread the winepresses, but suffer thirst.
From out of the city the dying groan, and the soul of the wounded cries for help; yet God charges no one with wrong.
“There are those who rebel against the light, who are not acquainted with its ways, and do not stay in its paths.
The murderer rises before it is light, that he may kill the poor and needy, and in the night he is like a thief.
The eye of the adulterer also waits for the twilight, saying, ‘No eye will see me’; and he veils his face.
In the dark they dig through houses; by day they shut themselves up; they do not know the light.
For deep darkness is morning to all of them; for they are friends with the terrors of deep darkness.
“You say, ‘Swift are they on the face of the waters; their portion is cursed in the land; no treader turns toward their vineyards.
Drought and heat snatch away the snow waters; so does Sheol those who have sinned.
The womb forgets them; the worm finds them sweet; they are no longer remembered, so wickedness is broken like a tree.’
“They wrong the barren, childless woman, and do no good to the widow.
Yet God prolongs the life of the mighty by his power; they rise up when they despair of life.
They are exalted a little while, and then are gone; they are brought low and gathered up like all others; they are cut off like the heads of grain.
Then Bildad the Shuhite answered and said:
How then can man be in the right before God? How can he who is born of woman be pure?
Behold, even the moon is not bright, and the stars are not pure in his eyes;
how much less man, who is a maggot, and the son of man, who is a worm!”
“How you have helped him who has no power! How you have saved the arm that has no strength!
The dead tremble under the waters and their inhabitants.
He stretches out the north over the void and hangs the earth on nothing.
He binds up the waters in his thick clouds, and the cloud is not split open under them.
He covers the face of the full moon and spreads over it his cloud.
He has inscribed a circle on the face of the waters at the boundary between light and darkness.
The pillars of heaven tremble and are astounded at his rebuke.
By his power he stilled the sea; by his understanding he shattered Rahab.
By his wind the heavens were made fair; his hand pierced the fleeing serpent.
Behold, these are but the outskirts of his ways, and how small a whisper do we hear of him! But the thunder of his power who can understand?”
“As God lives, who has taken away my right, and the Almighty, who has made my soul bitter,
as long as my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils,
“Let my enemy be as the wicked, and let him who rises up against me be as the unrighteous.
For what is the hope of the godless when God cuts him off, when God takes away his life?
Will he take delight in the Almighty? Will he call upon God at all times?
I will teach you concerning the hand of God; what is with the Almighty I will not conceal.
“This is the portion of a wicked man with God, and the heritage that oppressors receive from the Almighty:
If his children are multiplied, it is for the sword, and his descendants have not enough bread.
Those who survive him the pestilence buries, and his widows do not weep.
he may pile it up, but the righteous will wear it, and the innocent will divide the silver.
Terrors overtake him like a flood; in the night a whirlwind carries him off.
The east wind lifts him up and he is gone; it sweeps him out of his place.
Iron is taken out of the earth, and copper is smelted from the ore.
Man puts an end to darkness and searches out to the farthest limit the ore in gloom and deep darkness.
He opens shafts in a valley away from where anyone lives; they are forgotten by travelers; they hang in the air, far away from mankind; they swing to and fro.
As for the earth, out of it comes bread, but underneath it is turned up as by fire.
The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.
ESV® Permanent Text Edition (2016). The ESV® text has been reproduced in cooperation with and by permission of Good News Publishers.
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