Job 20

Zophar’s Second Response to Job

¹Then Zophar the Naamathite replied:

²“I must reply

because I am greatly disturbed.

³I’ve had to endure your insults,

but now my spirit prompts me to reply.

⁴“Don’t you realize that from the beginning of time,

ever since people were first placed on the earth,

⁵the triumph of the wicked has been short lived

and the joy of the godless has been only temporary?

⁶Though the pride of the godless reaches to the heavens

and their heads touch the clouds,

⁷yet they will vanish forever,

thrown away like their own dung.

Those who knew them will ask,

‘Where are they?’

⁸They will fade like a dream and not be found.

They will vanish like a vision in the night.

⁹Those who once saw them will see them no more.

Their families will never see them again.

¹⁰Their children will beg from the poor,

for they must give back their stolen riches.

¹¹Though they are young,

their bones will lie in the dust.

¹²“They enjoyed the sweet taste of wickedness,

letting it melt under their tongue.

¹³They savored it,

holding it long in their mouths.

¹⁴But suddenly the food in their bellies turns sour,

a poisonous venom in their stomach.

¹⁵They will vomit the wealth they swallowed.

God won’t let them keep it down.

¹⁶They will suck the poison of cobras.

The viper will kill them.

¹⁷They will never again enjoy streams of olive oil

or rivers of milk and honey.

¹⁸They will give back everything they worked for.

Their wealth will bring them no joy.

¹⁹For they oppressed the poor and left them destitute.

They foreclosed on their homes.

²⁰They were always greedy and never satisfied.

Nothing remains of all the things they dreamed about.

²¹Nothing is left after they finish gorging themselves.

Therefore, their prosperity will not endure.

²²“In the midst of plenty, they will run into trouble

and be overcome by misery.

²³May God give them a bellyful of trouble.

May God rain down his anger upon them.

²⁴When they try to escape an iron weapon,

a bronze-tipped arrow will pierce them.

²⁵The arrow is pulled from their back,

and the arrowhead glistens with blood.^a

The terrors of death are upon them.

²⁶Their treasures will be thrown into deepest darkness.

A wildfire will devour their goods,

consuming all they have left.

²⁷The heavens will reveal their guilt,

and the earth will testify against them.

²⁸A flood will sweep away their house.

God’s anger will descend on them in torrents.

²⁹This is the reward that God gives the wicked.

It is the inheritance decreed by God.”