Job 20:1-25 ▼

1 And Zophar the Naamathite answered and said:

2 “So my anxious thoughts make me answer, because of my urgency within me.

3 The rebuke of my shaming I have heard, and a spirit from my understanding answers for me.

4 This do you know from long ago, from the placing of man upon the earth,

5 that the triumph of the wicked is brief, and the rejoicing of the godless is for a moment?

6 Though his loftiness should go up to the heavens, and his head should touch to the clouds,

7 like his dung, forever he will perish; those having seen him will say, ‘Where is he?’

8 Like a dream he will fly away and they will not find him; indeed he will be made to wander like a vision of the night.

9 The eye that saw him will not continue, and his place will not behold him again.

10 His children will recompense the poor, and his hands will return his wealth.

11 His bones are full of his vigor, and upon the dust it will lie down with him.

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

13 he has pity on it and does not forsake it, and he withholds it in the midst of his palate.

14 His food is turned over in his belly, and the venom of cobras is within him.

15 He swallows wealth and vomits it; from his belly God expels it.

16 The poison of cobras he will suck, and the tongue of a viper will kill him.

17 He shall not look on streams, or rivers with torrents of honey and cream.

18 He will return his gain and not consume it; he will not rejoice from the wealth of his exchange.

19 For he has crushed and forsaken the poor; he has seized a house, and he did not build it.

20 For he has not known quiet in his belly, and with his desiring he will not deliver himself.

21 There is no remnant for him to eat; and upon thus his prosperity will not endure.

22 In the fullness of his sufficiency there will be distress for him; every hand of toil will come upon him.

23 It will come to pass at the filling of his belly, that God will send forth against him the burning of His anger, and will rain upon him into his bowels.

24 He will flee from a weapon of iron; a bow of bronze will pierce him through.

25 It is drawn and comes out from his back, and the gleaming point from his gall; terrors shall come over him.