9The fatherless child is snatched from the breast;

the infant of the poor is seized for a debt.

10Lacking clothes, they go about naked;

they carry the sheaves, but still go hungry.

11They crush olives among the terraces^a;

they tread the winepresses, yet suffer thirst.

12The 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.

13“There are those who rebel against the light,

who do not know its ways

or stay in its paths.

14When daylight is gone, the murderer rises up

and kills the poor and needy;

in the night he steals forth like a thief.

15The eye of the adulterer watches for dusk;

he thinks, ‘No eye will see me,’

and he keeps his face concealed.

16In the dark, men break into houses,

but by day they shut themselves in;

they want nothing to do with the light.

17For all of them, deep darkness is their morning^b;

they make friends with the terrors of darkness.^c

18“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.

19As heat and drought snatch away the melted snow,

so the grave^d snatches away those who have sinned.

20The womb forgets them,

the worm feasts on them;

evil men are no longer remembered

but are broken like a tree.

21They prey on the barren and childless woman,

and to the widow show no kindness.

22But God drags away the mighty by his power;

though they become established, they have no assurance of life.

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

but his eyes are on their ways.

24For 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.

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

and reduce my words to nothing?”