CHAPTER 24
1 Times be not hid from Almighty God; soothly they that know him, know not his days.
2 Other men have turned over the terms, or the boundary stones, of neighbours, they have taken away their flocks, and fed themselves.
3 They have driven away the ass of fatherless children, and they took away the cow of a widow for a wed.
4 They destroyed the way of poor men, and they oppressed together the mild men of [the] earth.
5 Other men as wild asses in desert go out to their work; and they wake to take prey, and before make ready bread to their children.
6 They cut down a field not theirs, and they gather [the] grapes of his vinery, whom they have oppressed by violence.
7 They leave men naked, and take away their clothes, to the which men there is no covering in cold;
8 which men the rains of mountains wet, and they have no covering, and they embrace stones.
9 They did violence, and robbed fatherless and motherless children; and they spoiled, either robbed, the community of poor men.
10 They took away ears of corn from naked men, and going without cloth, and from hungry men.
11 They were hid in midday among the heaps of those men, that thirst, when the presses of grapes be trodden.
12 They made men of cities to wail, and the souls of wounded men shall cry; and God suffereth it not to go away unpunished.
13 They were rebel to light; they knew not the ways thereof, neither they turned again by the paths thereof.
14 A manslayer riseth full early, and slayeth a needy man, and a poor man; and by night he shall be as a night thief.
15 The eye of [the] adulterer keepeth darkness, and saith, An eye shall not see me; and he shall cover his face.
16 They undermine houses in dark-nesses, as they said together to them-selves in the day; and they knew not light.
17 If the morrowtide appeareth suddenly, they deem it the shadow of death; and so they go in darknesses, as in light.
18 He is unstabler than the face of the water; his part in [the] earth be cursed, and go he not by the way of vineries [or vines].
19 Pass he to a full great heat from the waters of snows, and the sin of him till to hells [or hell].
20 Mercy forget him; his sweetness be for a worm; be he not in mind, but be he all-broken as an unfruitful tree.
21 For he fed on the barren, and her that childeth not, and he did not well to the widow.
22 He drew down strong men in his strength; and when he standeth in great state or prosperity, he shall not believe to his life.
23 God gave to him a place of penance, and he misuseth that into pride; soothly the eyes of God be beholding in the ways of that man.
24 They be raised up at a little while, and they shall not stand; and they shall be made low as all vile things, and they shall be taken away; and as the highnesses of ears of corn they shall be all-broken.
25 That if it is not so, who may reprove me, that I lied, and have put forth follily my words before God?