Job 20

Zophar Speaks: Wickedness Receives Just Retribution

²⁰Then Zophar the Naamathite answered:

²“Listen! My thoughts urge me to answer

because of the agitation within me.

³I hear censure that insults me,

and a spirit beyond my understanding answers me.^*

⁴Do you not know this from of old,

ever since mortals were placed on earth,^*

⁵that the exulting of the wicked is short

and the joy of the godless is but for a moment?^*

⁶Even though they mount up high as the heavens

and their head reaches to the clouds,^*

⁷they will perish forever like their own dung;

those who have seen them will say, ‘Where are they?’

⁸They will fly away like a dream and not be found;

they will be chased away like a vision of the night.^*

⁹The eye that saw them will see them no more,

nor will their place behold them any longer.^*

¹⁰Their children will seek the favor of the poor,

and their hands will give back their wealth.^*

¹¹Their bodies, once full of youth,

will lie down in the dust with them.^*

¹²“Though wickedness is sweet in their mouth,

though they hide it under their tongues,^*

¹³though they are loath to let it go

and hold it in their mouths,

¹⁴yet their food is turned in their stomachs;

it is the venom of asps within them.

¹⁵They swallow down riches and vomit them up again;

God casts them out of their bellies.

¹⁶They will suck the poison of asps;

the tongue of a viper will kill them.^*

¹⁷They will not look on the rivers,

the streams flowing with honey and curds.^*

¹⁸They will give back the fruit of their toil

and will not swallow it down;

from the profit of their trading

they will get no enjoyment.^*

¹⁹For they have crushed and abandoned the poor;

they have seized a house that they did not build.^*

²⁰“For they knew no quiet in their bellies;

in their greed they let nothing escape.^*

²¹There was nothing left after they had eaten;

therefore their prosperity will not endure.^*

²²In full sufficiency they will be in distress;

all the force of misery will come upon them.

²³To fill their belly to the full,

God^c will send his fierce anger into them

and rain it upon them as their food.^*

²⁴They will flee from an iron weapon;

a bronze arrow will strike them through.^*

²⁵It is drawn forth and comes out of their body,

and the glittering point comes out of their gall;

terrors come upon them.^*

²⁶Utter darkness is laid up for their treasures;

a fire fanned by no one will devour them;

what is left in their tent will be consumed.^*

²⁷The heavens will reveal their iniquity,

and the earth will rise up against them.^*

²⁸The possessions of their house will be carried away,

dragged off in the day of God’s^d wrath.^*

²⁹This is the portion of the wicked from God,

the heritage decreed for them by God.”^*