Job 20:1-29

Zophar’s Second Speech

20:1 Then Zophar the Naamathite answered:

20:2 “This is why my troubled thoughts bring me back –

because of my feelings within me.

20:3 When I hear a reproof that dishonors me,

then my understanding prompts me to answer.

20:4 “Surely you know that it has been from old,

ever since humankind was placed on the earth,

20:5 that the elation of the wicked is brief,

the joy of the godless lasts but a moment.

20:6 Even though his stature reaches to the heavens

and his head touches the clouds,

20:7 he will perish forever, like his own excrement;

those who used to see him will say, ‘Where is he?’

20:8 Like a dream he flies away, never again to be found,

and like a vision of the night he is put to flight.

20:9 People who had seen him will not see him again,

and the place where he was

will recognize him no longer.

20:10 His sons must recompense the poor;

his own hands must return his wealth.

20:11 His bones were full of his youthful vigor,

but that vigor will lie down with him in the dust.

20:12 “If evil is sweet in his mouth

and he hides it under his tongue,

20:13 if he retains it for himself

and does not let it go,

and holds it fast in his mouth,

20:14 his food is turned sour in his stomach;

it becomes the venom of serpents within him.

20:15 The wealth that he consumed he vomits up,

God will make him throw it out of his stomach.

20:16 He sucks the poison of serpents;

the fangs of a viper kill him.

20:17 He will not look on the streams,

the rivers, which are the torrents

of honey and butter.

20:18 He gives back the ill-gotten gain

without assimilating it;

he will not enjoy the wealth from his commerce.

20:19 For he has oppressed the poor and abandoned them;

he has seized a house which he did not build.

20:20 For he knows no satisfaction in his appetite;

he does not let anything he desires escape.

20:21 “Nothing is left for him to devour;

that is why his prosperity does not last.

20:22 In the fullness of his sufficiency,

distress overtakes him.

the full force of misery will come upon him.

20:23 “While he is filling his belly,

God sends his burning anger against him,

and rains down his blows upon him.

20:24 If he flees from an iron weapon,

then an arrow from a bronze bow pierces him.

20:25 When he pulls it out and it comes out of his back,

the gleaming point out of his liver,

terrors come over him.

20:26 Total darkness waits to receive his treasures;

a fire which has not been kindled

will consume him

and devour what is left in his tent.

20:27 The heavens reveal his iniquity;

the earth rises up against him.

20:28 A flood will carry off his house,

rushing waters on the day of God’s wrath.

20:29 Such is the lot God allots the wicked,

and the heritage of his appointment from God.”