The Apparent Indifference of God

1“Why are times not appointed by the Almighty?

Why do those who know him not see his days?

2Men move boundary stones;

they seize the flock and pasture them.

3They drive away the orphan’s donkey;

they take the widow’s ox as a pledge.

4They turn the needy from the pathway,

and the poor of the land hide themselves together.

5Like 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.

6They reap fodder in the field,

and glean in the vineyard of the wicked.

7They spend the night naked because they lack clothing;

they have no covering against the cold.

8They are soaked by mountain rains

and huddle in the rocks because they lack shelter.

9The fatherless child is snatched from the breast,

the infant of the poor is taken as a pledge.

10They go about naked, without clothing,

and go hungry while they carry the sheaves.

11They press out the olive oil between the rows of olive trees;

they tread the winepresses while they are thirsty.

12From the city the dying groan,

and the wounded cry out for help,

but God charges no one with wrongdoing.

13There are those who rebel against the light;

they do not know its ways

and they do not stay on its paths.

14Before daybreak the murderer rises up;

he kills the poor and the needy;

in the night he is like a thief.

15And the eye of the adulterer watches for the twilight,

thinking, ‘No eye can see me,’

and covers his face with a mask.

16In the dark the robber breaks into houses,

but by day they shut themselves in;

they do not know the light.

17For all of them, the morning is to them

like deep darkness;

they are friends with the terrors of darkness.

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.

19The drought as well as the heat carry away

the melted snow;

so the grave takes away those who have sinned.

20The womb forgets him,

the worm feasts on him,

no longer will he be remembered.

Like a tree, wickedness will be broken down.

21He preys on the barren and childless woman,

and does not treat the widow well.

22But God drags off the mighty by his power;

when God rises up against him, he has no faith in his life.

23God may let them rest in a feeling of security,

but he is constantly watching all their ways.

24They are exalted for a little while,

and then they are gone,

they are brought low like all others,

and gathered in,

and like a head of grain they are cut off.’

25“If this is not so, who can prove me a liar

and reduce my words to nothing?”