Job 20:16

He sucks the poison ¹  of serpents; ²  the fangs ³  of a viper ⁴  kill him.

biblegateway Job 20:16

He will suck the poison of serpents; the fangs of an adder will kill him.

biblegateway Job 20:16

"He sucks the poison of cobras; The viper’s tongue slays him.

biblegateway Job 20:16

He will suck the poison of snakes. The viper will kill him.

biblegateway Job 20:16

They gorge on evil, make a diet of that poison--a deadly diet--and it kills them.

SABDAweb Job 20:16

He takes the poison of snakes into his mouth, the tongue of the snake is the cause of his death.

bibleoremus Job 20:16

They will suck the poison of asps; the tongue of a viper will kill them.

biblegateway Job 20:16

He will suck the poison of cobras; The viper’s tongue will slay him.

biblegateway Job 20:16

He sucks the poison ¹  of serpents; ²  the fangs ³  of a viper ⁴  kill him.

¹ tn The word is a homonym for the word for “head,” which has led to some confusion in the early versions.

² sn To take the possessions of another person is hereby compared to sucking poison from a serpent – it will kill eventually.

³ tn Heb “tongue.”

⁴ tn Some have thought this verse is a gloss on v. 14 and should be deleted. But the word for “viper” (אֶפְעֶה, ’ef’eh) is a rare word, occurring only here and in Isa 30:6 and 59:5. It is unlikely that a rarer word would be used in a gloss. But the point is similar to v. 14 – the wealth that was greedily sucked in by the wicked proves to be their undoing. Either this is totally irrelevant to Job’s case, a general discussion, or the man is raising questions about how Job got his wealth.