Job 20

1Then Zophar the Naamathite answered:

2“So my troubled thoughts compel me to reply, because of the agitation within me.

3I hear a rebuke that insults me, and a spirit from my understanding gives me an answer.

4Do you not know this from ancient times, since humans were placed on the earth,

5that the triumph of the wicked is short, and the joy of the godless lasts only a moment?

6Though his pride rises up to the heavens and his head reaches the clouds,

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

8He flies away like a dream and cannot be found; he is chased off like a vision in the night.

9The eye that saw him will not see him again; his place will look on him no more.

10His children will seek the favor of the poor; his own hands must give back his wealth.

11His bones are full of youthful vigor, but it will lie down with him in the dust.

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

13though he savors it and will not let it go, but holds it back in his mouth,

14his food turns in his stomach; it becomes the venom of cobras within him.

15He swallows riches and vomits them up; God will make his belly throw them out.

16He will suck the poison of cobras; the viper’s tongue will kill him.

17He will not look on the streams, the rivers, the torrents of honey and cream.

18He must give back what he toiled for and not swallow it; he will not enjoy the wealth from his trading.

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

20Because his appetite knew no rest, he will not escape with anything he craves.

21Nothing is left for him to devour; therefore his prosperity will not last.

22In the fullness of his plenty, distress will overtake him; the full force of misery will come upon him.

23When he is filling his belly, God will send his burning anger against him and rain it down on him as his food.

24He may flee from an iron weapon, but an arrow from a bronze bow will pierce him.

25He pulls it out, and it comes out of his back; the glittering point comes out of his liver; terrors come over him.

26Total darkness is stored up for his treasures; a fire no one fanned will consume him and devour what is left in his tent.

27The heavens will expose his guilt, and the earth will rise up against him.

28The produce of his house will be carried away, swept off on the day of God’s anger.

29This is the wicked man’s portion from God, the inheritance God has decreed for him.”