Job 20:1-16 ▼

1 Then Zophar the Naamathite replied:

2 “So my anxious thoughts compel me to answer, because of the turmoil within me.

3 I have heard a rebuke that insults me, and my understanding prompts a reply.

4 Do you not know that from antiquity, since man was placed on the earth,

5 the triumph of the wicked has been brief and the joy of the godless momentary?

6 Though his arrogance reaches the heavens, and his head touches the clouds,

7 he will perish forever, like his own dung; those who had seen him will ask, ‘Where is he?’

8 He will fly away like a dream, never to be found; he will be chased away like a vision in the night.

9 The eye that saw him will see him no more, and his place will no longer behold him.

10 His sons will seek the favor of the poor, for his own hands must return his wealth.

11 The youthful vigor that fills his bones will lie down with him in the dust.

12 Though evil is sweet in his mouth and he conceals it under his tongue,

13 though he cannot bear to let it go and keeps it in his mouth,

14 yet in his stomach his food sours into the venom of cobras within him.

15 He swallows wealth but vomits it out; God will force it from his stomach.

16 He will suck the poison of cobras; the fangs of a viper will kill him.