1Then Zophar the Naamathite answered and said:
2“Therefore my disquieting thoughts make me answer, and because of the agitation within me.
3I hear a rebuke that insults me, but a spirit from my understanding answers me.
4Do you know this, from of old, from the placing of humankind upon the earth,
5that the exulting of the wicked is short-lived, and the joy of the godless lasts but a moment?
6Though his loftiness mounts up to the heavens, and his head reaches to the cloud,
7like his own dung he perishes forever; those who saw him will say, ‘Where is he?’
8Like a dream he flies away and is not found; he is chased off like a vision of the night.
9The eye that glimpsed him will do so no more, and his place will no longer behold him.
10His sons will seek the favor of the poor, and his own hands will give back his wealth.
11His bones were full of his youthful vigor, but it will lie down with him in the dust.
12Though evil is sweet in his mouth, and he hides it under his tongue,
13though he spares it and will not let it go, and holds it back in the midst of his palate,
14his food is turned in his stomach; it is the venom of cobras within him.
15He swallowed down wealth, but he vomits it up; God drives it out of his belly.
16He sucks the poison of cobras; the viper’s tongue will slay him.
17He will not look upon the channels, the rivers, the torrents of honey and curds.
18He gives back what he toiled for and does not swallow it; like the wealth from his trading, he will not rejoice.
19For he crushed and abandoned the poor; he seized a house he did not build.
20For he knew no ease in his belly; with his treasured things he will not escape.
21Nothing was left for his devouring; therefore his prosperity will not endure.
22In the fullness of his abundance he will be in distress; every hand of the wretched will come upon him.
23Let it be, to fill his belly, that he sends against him the heat of his anger, and rains it down upon him as his food.
24He flees from an iron weapon, but a bronze bow pierces him through.
25He draws it out, and it comes out of his back, the gleaming point from his gall; terrors come upon him.
26Total darkness is laid up for his treasures; a fire not fanned will devour him; it will go ill with any remnant in his tent.
27The heavens will reveal his iniquity, and the earth rises up against him.
28The produce of his house will be carried off, swept away in the day of his anger.
29This is the portion of a wicked man from God, the inheritance decreed for him by God.
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