Job 24:10-20

10 So the poor go around naked without any clothes; they carry bundles of grain but still go hungry;

11 they crush olives to get oil and grapes to get wine, but they still go thirsty.

12 Dying people groan in the city, and the injured cry out for help, but God accuses no one of doing wrong.

13 "Those who fight against the light do not know God's ways or stay in his paths.

14 When the day is over, the murderers get up to kill the poor and needy. At night they go about like thieves.

15 Those who are guilty of adultery watch for the night, thinking, 'No one will see us,' and they keep their faces covered.

16 In the dark, evil people break into houses. In the daytime they shut themselves up in their own houses, because they want nothing to do with the light.

17 Darkness is like morning to all these evil people who make friends with the terrors of darkness.

18 "They are like foam floating on the water. Their part of the land is cursed; no one uses the road that goes by their vineyards.

19 As heat and dryness quickly melt the snow, so the grave quickly takes away the sinners.

20 Their mothers forget them, and worms will eat their bodies. They will not be remembered, so wickedness is broken in pieces like a stick.

Job 24:10-20 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO JOB 24

This chapter contains the second part of Job's answer to the last discourse of Eliphaz, in which he shows that wicked men, those of the worst characters, prosper in the world, and go through it with impunity; he lays down this as a certain truth, that though no time is hid from God, yet they that are most familiar with him, and know most of him, do not see, and cannot observe, any days of his for judging and punishing wicked men in, this life, Job 24:1; and instances in men guilty of injustice, violence, oppression, cruelty, and inhumanity, to their neighbours, and yet God lays not folly to them, or charges them with sin, and punishes them for it, Job 24:2-12; and in persons that commit the most atrocious crimes in secret, such as murderers, adulterers, and thieves, Job 24:13-17; he allows that there is a curse upon their portion, and that the grave shall consume them, and they shall be remembered no more, Job 24:18-20; and because of their ill treatment of others, though they may be in safety and prosperity, and be exalted for a while, they shall be brought low and cut off by death, but generally speaking are not punished in this life, Job 24:21-24; and concludes with the greatest assurance of being in the right, and having truth on his side, Job 24:25.