5. “Aren’t you really very wicked?Is there no end to your wrongdoing?
6. For no reason you take your brothers’ goods as security for a loanand strip them of their clothes.
7. You don’t even give a tired person a drink of water,and you take food away from hungry people.
8. A strong person owns the land.A privileged person lives in it.
9. You send widows away empty-handed,and the arms of orphans are broken.
10. That is why traps are all around youand great fear suddenly grips you.
11. ⌊That is why⌋ darkness surrounds you and you cannot seeand a flood of water covers you.
12. “Isn’t God high above in the heavens?Look how high the highest stars are!
13. You ask, ‘What does God know?Can he judge ⌊anything⌋ from behind a dark cloud?
14. Thick clouds surround him so that he cannot see.He walks above the clouds.’
15. “Are you following the old path that wicked people have taken?
16. They are snatched up before their time.A river washes their foundation away.
17. They told God, ‘Leave us alone!What can the Almighty do for us?’
18. Yet, he filled their homes with good things.(The plan of the wicked is foreign to my way of thinking.)
19. The righteous saw it and were glad,and the innocent made fun of them by saying,
20. ‘Indeed, their wealth has been wiped out,and a fire has burned up what ⌊little⌋ they had left.’
21. “Be in harmony and at peace with God.In this way you will have prosperity.
22. Accept instruction from his mouth,and keep his words in your heart.
23. If you return to the Almighty, you will prosper.If you put wrongdoing out of your tent,
24. and lay your gold down in the dust,and put your gold from Ophir among the pebbles in the rivers,