12. From the city people groan, and the throat of the wounded cries for help; yet God does not regard it as unseemly.
13. “Those are among the ones rebelling against the light; they do not recognize his ways, and they do not stay in his paths.
14. At dusk the murderer rises; he kills the needy and the poor, and in the night he is like a thief.
15. And the eye of the adulterer waits for dusk, saying, ‘No eye will see me,’ and he places a covering on his face.
16. He digs through houses in the darkness; by day they shut themselves in— they do not know the light
17. because morning likewise is to them deep darkness; indeed, they know about the terrors of deep darkness.
18. “He himself is swift on the water’s surface; their portion is cursed in the land. No one turns toward the path of their vineyards.
19. Drought and heat snatch away the snow waters, like Sheol snatches away those who have sinned.
20. The womb forgets him. The maggot feasts on him until he is no longer remembered, and wickedness is broken like a tree.
21. He feeds on the barren, who does not have a child, and does no good to the widow.
22. Yet he carries off the tyrants by his strength; if he rises up, then he cannot be certain of life.
23. He gives security to him, and he is supported, but his eyes are upon their ways.
24. They are exalted a little while, then they are gone. And they are brought low; they are cut off like all others, and like the heads of grain they wither away.
25. “And if it is not so, then who can prove me a liar and reduce my word to nothing?”