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- "Why does the Almighty not set times for judgment? Why must those who know him look in vain for such days?
- Men move boundary stones; they pasture flocks they have stolen.
- They drive away the orphan's donkey and take the widow's ox in pledge.
- They thrust the needy from the path and force all the poor of the land into hiding.
- Like wild donkeys in the desert, the poor go about their labor of foraging food; the wasteland provides food for their children.
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- They gather fodder in the fields and glean in the vineyards of the wicked.
- Lacking clothes, they spend the night naked; they have nothing to cover themselves in the cold.
- They are drenched by mountain rains and hug the rocks for lack of shelter.
- The fatherless child is snatched from the breast; the infant of the poor is seized for a debt.
- Lacking clothes, they go about naked; they carry the sheaves, but still go hungry.
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- They crush olives among the terraces ; they tread the winepresses, yet suffer thirst.
- The 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.
- "There are those who rebel against the light, who do not know its ways or stay in its paths.
- When daylight is gone, the murderer rises up and kills the poor and needy; in the night he steals forth like a thief.
- The eye of the adulterer watches for dusk; he thinks, 'No eye will see me,' and he keeps his face concealed.
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- In the dark, men break into houses, but by day they shut themselves in; they want nothing to do with the light.
- For all of them, deep darkness is their morning ; they make friends with the terrors of darkness.
- "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.
- As heat and drought snatch away the melted snow, so the grave snatches away those who have sinned.
- The womb forgets them, the worm feasts on them; evil men are no longer remembered but are broken like a tree.
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- They prey on the barren and childless woman, and to the widow show no kindness.
- But God drags away the mighty by his power; though they become established, they have no assurance of life.
- He may let them rest in a feeling of security, but his eyes are on their ways.
- For 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.
- "If this is not so, who can prove me false and reduce my words to nothing?"
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