Zophar: Triumph of the Wicked Short-lived

1Then answered Zophar the Naamathite, and said,

2Therefore do my thoughts cause me to answer, and for [this] I make haste.

3I have heard the check of my reproach, and the spirit of my understanding causeth me to answer.

4Knowest thou [not] this of old, since man was placed upon earth,

5That the triumphing of the wicked [is] short, and the joy of the hypocrite [but] for a moment?

6Though his excellency mount up to the heavens, and his head reach unto the clouds;

7[Yet] he shall perish for ever like his own dung: they which have seen him shall say, Where [is] he?

8He shall fly away as a dream, and shall not be found: yea, he shall be chased away as a vision of the night.

9The eye also [which] saw him shall [see him] no more; neither shall his place any more behold him.

10His children shall seek to please the poor, and his hands shall restore their goods.

11His bones are full [of the sin] of his youth, which shall lie down with him in the dust.

12Though wickedness be sweet in his mouth, [though] he hide it under his tongue;

13[Though] he spare it, and forsake it not; but keep it still within his mouth:

14[Yet] his meat in his bowels is turned, [it is] the gall of asps within him.

15He hath swallowed down riches, and he shall vomit them up again: God shall cast them out of his belly.

16He shall suck the poison of asps: the viper's tongue shall slay him.

17He shall not see the rivers, the floods, the brooks of honey and butter.

18That which he laboured for shall he restore, and shall not swallow [it] down: according to [his] substance [shall] the restitution [be], and he shall not rejoice [therein].

19Because he hath oppressed [and] hath forsaken the poor; [because] he hath violently taken away an house which he builded not;

20Surely he shall not feel quietness in his belly, he shall not save of that which he desired.

21There shall none of his meat be left; therefore shall no man look for his goods.

22In the fulness {08675;04390:08763} of his sufficiency he shall be in straits: every hand of the wicked shall come upon him.

23[When] he is about to fill his belly, [God] shall cast the fury of his wrath upon him, and shall rain [it] upon him while he is eating.

24He shall flee from the iron weapon, [and] the bow of steel shall strike him through.

25It is drawn, and cometh out of the body; yea, the glittering sword cometh out of his gall: terrors [are] upon him.

26All darkness [shall be] hid in his secret places: a fire not blown shall consume him; it shall go ill with him that is left in his tabernacle.

27The heaven shall reveal his iniquity; and the earth shall rise up against him.

28The increase of his house shall depart, [and his goods] shall flow away in the day of his wrath.

29This [is] the portion of a wicked man from God, and the heritage appointed unto him by God.