Job 20

Zophar

¹Then Zophar the Naamathite replied:

²“My troubled thoughts prompt me to answer

because I am greatly disturbed.

³I hear a rebuke that dishonors me,

and my understanding inspires me to reply.

⁴“Surely you know how it has been from of old,

ever since mankind was placed on the earth,

⁵that the mirth of the wicked is brief,

the joy of the godless lasts but a moment.

⁶Though the pride of the godless person reaches to the heavens

and his head touches the clouds,

⁷he will perish forever, like his own dung;

those who have seen him will say, ‘Where is he?’

⁸Like a dream he flies away, no more to be found,

banished like a vision of the night.

⁹The eye that saw him will not see him again;

his place will look on him no more.

¹⁰His children must make amends to the poor;

his own hands must give back his wealth.

¹¹The youthful vigor that fills his bones

will lie with him in the dust.

¹²“Though evil is sweet in his mouth

and he hides it under his tongue,

¹³though he cannot bear to let it go

and lets it linger in his mouth,

¹⁴yet his food will turn sour in his stomach;

it will become the venom of serpents within him.

¹⁵He will spit out the riches he swallowed;

God will make his stomach vomit them up.

¹⁶He will suck the poison of serpents;

the fangs of an adder will kill him.

¹⁷He will not enjoy the streams,

the rivers flowing with honey and cream.

¹⁸What he toiled for he must give back uneaten;

he will not enjoy the profit from his trading.

¹⁹For he has oppressed the poor and left them destitute;

he has seized houses he did not build.

²⁰“Surely he will have no respite from his craving;

he cannot save himself by his treasure.

²¹Nothing is left for him to devour;

his prosperity will not endure.

²²In the midst of his plenty, distress will overtake him;

the full force of misery will come upon him.

²³When he has filled his belly,

God will vent his burning anger against him

and rain down his blows on him.

²⁴Though he flees from an iron weapon,

a bronze-tipped arrow pierces him.

²⁵He pulls it out of his back,

the gleaming point out of his liver.

Terrors will come over him;

²⁶total darkness lies in wait for his treasures.

A fire unfanned will consume him

and devour what is left in his tent.

²⁷The heavens will expose his guilt;

the earth will rise up against him.

²⁸A flood will carry off his house,

rushing waters on the day of God’s wrath.

²⁹Such is the fate God allots the wicked,

the heritage appointed for them by God.”