Job 20

ZOPHAR SPEAKS

20Then Zophar the Naamathiteⁱ replied:

²This is why my unsettling thoughts compel me to answer,

because I am upset!^G

³I have heard a rebuke that insults me,

and my understanding^H makes me reply.^j

⁴Don’t you know that ever since antiquity,

from the time a human was placed on earth,

⁵the joy of the wicked has been brief

and the happiness of the godless has lasted only a moment?^k

⁶Though his arrogance reaches heaven,

and his head touches the clouds,^l

⁷he will vanish forever like his own dung.

Those who know^I him will ask, “Where is he?”^m

⁸He will fly away like a dream and never be found;

he will be chased away like a vision in the night.ⁿ

⁹The eye that saw him will see him no more,^o

and his household will no longer see him.^p

¹⁰His children will beg from^J the poor,

for his own hands must give back his wealth.

¹¹His frame may be full of youthful vigor,

but it will lie down with him in dust.^q

¹²Though evil tastes sweet in his mouth

and he conceals it under his tongue,

¹³though he cherishes it and will not let it go

but keeps it in his mouth,^r

¹⁴yet the food in his stomach turns

into cobras’ venom inside him.

¹⁵He swallows wealth but must vomit it up;

God will force it from his stomach.

¹⁶He will suck the poison of cobras;

a viper’s fangs^A will kill him.^s

¹⁷He will not enjoy the streams,

the rivers flowing with honey and curds.^t

¹⁸He must return the fruit of his labor without consuming it;

he doesn’t enjoy the profits from his trading.

¹⁹For he oppressed and abandoned the poor;

he seized a house he did not build.^u

²⁰Because his appetite is never satisfied,^B

he does not let anything he desires escape.

²¹Nothing is left for him to consume;^v

therefore, his prosperity will not last.

²²At the height of his success^C distress will come to him;^a

the full weight of misery^D will crush him.

²³When he fills his stomach,

God will send his burning anger against him,

raining^b it down on him while he is eating.^E

²⁴If he flees from an iron weapon,

an arrow from a bronze bow will pierce him.

²⁵He pulls it out of his back,

the flashing tip out of his liver.^F

Terrors come over him.^c

²⁶Total darkness is reserved for his treasures.

A fire unfanned by human hands will consume^d him;

it will feed on what is left in his tent.

²⁷The heavens will expose his iniquity,^e

and the earth will rise up against him.^f

²⁸The possessions in his house will be removed,

flowing away on the day of God’s anger.

²⁹This is the wicked person’s lot^g from God,

the inheritance God ordained for him.