Family Prayer
in the Early Evening

24 “Why are not times of judgment kept by the Almighty,
    and why do those who know him never see his days?
² Some move landmarks;
    they seize flocks and pasture them.
³ They drive away the donkey of the fatherless;
    they take the widow's ox for a pledge.
⁴ They thrust the poor off the road;
    the poor of the earth all hide themselves.
⁵ Behold, like wild donkeys in the desert
    the poor go out to their toil, seeking game;
    the wasteland yields food for their children.
⁶ They gather their fodder in the field,
    and they glean the vineyard of the wicked man.
⁷ They lie all night naked, without clothing,
    and have no covering in the cold.
⁸ They are wet with the rain of the mountains
    and cling to the rock for lack of shelter.
⁹ (There are those who snatch the fatherless child from the breast,
    and they take a pledge against the poor.)
¹⁰ They go about naked, without clothing;
    hungry, they carry the sheaves;
¹¹ among the olive rows of the wicked they make oil;
    they tread the winepresses, but suffer thirst.
¹² From out of the city the dying groan,
    and the soul of the wounded cries for help;
    yet God charges no one with wrong.

¹³ “There are those who rebel against the light,
    who are not acquainted with its ways,
    and do not stay in its paths.
¹⁴ The murderer rises before it is light,
    that he may kill the poor and needy,
    and in the night he is like a thief.
¹⁵ The eye of the adulterer also waits for the twilight,
    saying, ‘No eye will see me’;
    and he veils his face.
¹⁶ In the dark they dig through houses;
    by day they shut themselves up;
    they do not know the light.
¹⁷ For deep darkness is morning to all of them;
    for they are friends with the terrors of deep darkness.

¹⁸ “You say, ‘Swift are they on the face of the waters;
    their portion is cursed in the land;
    no treader turns toward their vineyards.
¹⁹ Drought and heat snatch away the snow waters;
    so does Sheol those who have sinned.
²⁰ The womb forgets them;
    the worm finds them sweet;
they are no longer remembered,
    so wickedness is broken like a tree.’

²¹ “They wrong the barren, childless woman,
    and do no good to the widow.
²² Yet God prolongs the life of the mighty by his power;
    they rise up when they despair of life.
²³ He gives them security, and they are supported,
    and his eyes are upon their ways.
²⁴ 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.
²⁵ If it is not so, who will prove me a liar
    and show that there is nothing in what I say?”