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Zophar Speaks: Wickedness Receives Just Retribution

20Then Zophar the Naamathite answered:
² ‘Pay attention! My thoughts urge me to answer,
   because of the agitation within me.
³ I hear censure that insults me,
   and a spirit beyond my understanding answers me.
⁴ Do you not know this from of old,
   ever since mortals were placed on earth,
⁵ that the exulting of the wicked is short,
   and the joy of the godless is but for a moment?
⁶ Even though they mount up high as the heavens,
   and their head reaches to the clouds,
⁷ they will perish for ever like their own dung;
   those who have seen them will say, “Where are they?”
⁸ They will fly away like a dream, and not be found;
   they will be chased away like a vision of the night.
⁹ The eye that saw them will see them no more,
   nor will their place behold them any longer.
¹⁰ Their children will seek the favour of the poor,
   and their hands will give back their wealth.
¹¹ Their 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,
¹³ though they are loath to let it go,
   and hold it in their mouths,
¹⁴ yet their food is turned in their stomachs;
   it is the venom of asps within them.
¹⁵ They swallow down riches and vomit them up again;
   God casts them out of their bellies.
¹⁶ They will suck the poison of asps;
   the tongue of a viper will kill them.
¹⁷ They will not look on the rivers,
   the streams flowing with honey and curds.
¹⁸ They 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.
¹⁹ For they have crushed and abandoned the poor,
   they have seized a house that they did not build.

²⁰ ‘They knew no quiet in their bellies;
   in their greed they let nothing escape.
²¹ There was nothing left after they had eaten;
   therefore their prosperity will not endure.
²² In full sufficiency they will be in distress;
   all the force of misery will come upon them.
²³ To fill their belly to the full
   God^* will send his fierce anger into them,
   and rain it upon them as their food.^*
24 They will flee from an iron weapon;
   a bronze arrow will strike them through.
²⁵ It is drawn forth and comes out of their body,
   and the glittering point comes out of their gall;
   terrors come upon them.
²⁶ Utter 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.
²⁷ The heavens will reveal their iniquity,
   and the earth will rise up against them.
²⁸ The possessions of their house will be carried away,
   dragged off on the day of God’s^* wrath.
²⁹ This is the portion of the wicked from God,
   the heritage decreed for them by God.’