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Round Two: Zophar’s Speech

20 Then Zophar the Na’amathite responded:

This is why my troubled thoughts make me respond again,
and why my thoughts are racing through my mind:
I heard a rebuke that insults me,
so my spirit prompts me to respond with understanding.

Don’t you know this?
From ancient times,
from the time when Adam[a] was placed on the earth,
the triumphant cry of the wicked has been short-lived,
and the joy of the godless lasts only a moment.
Although his arrogance reaches up to the skies,
and his head touches the clouds,
he will perish forever like his own filth.
Those who saw him will say, “Where is he?”
Like a dream, he flies away, and he cannot be found.
Like a vision during the night, he flutters away.
An eye catches sight of him, but it does not see him again.
His place will no longer look at him.
10 His children must make restitution to[b] the poor.
His hands must give back his wealth.
11 His bones were once filled with youthful vigor,
but that vigor will lie down with him in the dust.
12 If evil tastes sweet in his mouth,
and he tucks it under his tongue,
13 if he hoards it for himself,
and he does not let it go,
but savors it on his palate,
14 his food will turn into cobra venom in his stomach.
15 He swallowed wealth, but he vomits it up.
God makes him expel it from his belly.
16 He sucks the poison of cobras.
The fangs of a viper kill him.
17 He will not see the streams,
the rivers that flow with honey and cream.
18 Without digesting it, he gives up the produce for which he labored.
He does not enjoy the wealth for which he traded,
19 because he has crushed and abandoned the poor,
and he has stolen a house he did not build.
20 His stomach is never filled.
He cannot satisfy his desires,
21 because now there is nothing left for him to eat,
so his prosperity will not endure.
22 Even when he has plenty,
distress catches up with him,
and misery grabs hold of him.
23 While he is filling his belly,
God will send burning anger upon him,
and it will rain down on his body.[c]
24 He flees from iron weapons,
but he is pierced by a bronze arrow.
25 He pulls the arrow out of his back,
and the shiny point comes out of his liver.
Terrors come over him.
26 Complete darkness is lying in wait for his hidden treasures.
A fire that needs no fanning will consume him.
It will destroy anything that survives in his tent.
27 The heavens will uncover his guilt,
and the earth will rise up against him.
28 A flood will carry away his house,
sweeping away his possessions on the day of God’s wrath.
29 This is God’s sentence on the evil man.
This is his heritage decreed by God.

Footnotes

  1. Job 20:4 Or mankind
  2. Job 20:10 Or seek the favor of
  3. Job 20:23 The meaning of this word is uncertain.