Zophar: the joy of the godless lasts a moment
1Then Zophar the Naamathite answered: 2So my racing thoughts drive me to answer, because of the turmoil inside me. 3I have to listen to a lesson that insults me, and a spirit out of my own understanding answers back. 4Do you not know this, from of old, from the day man was set on the earth, 5that the cheering of the wicked is short, and the joy of the godless lasts a moment? 6Though he climbs as high as the heavens and his head touches the cloud, 7he perishes forever, like his own dung, and those who saw him ask, “Where is he?” 8He flies off like a dream and is not found; he is chased away like a vision of the night. 9The eye that watched him will not do it again; his place will look on him no more. 10His sons must make it up to the poor, and his own hands give back his wealth. 11His bones were full of his youth, and it lies down with him in the dust. 12Though evil tastes 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 against his palate, 14his food turns on him in his belly: inside him it is the venom of cobras. 15He swallowed wealth, and he vomits it up; God drives it out of his stomach. 16He sucks the poison of cobras; the viper’s tongue kills him. 17He will never gaze on the streams, the rivers running with honey and cream. 18He gives back what he worked for and does not swallow it; he takes no joy in the wealth he traded for. 19For he crushed the poor and abandoned them; he seized a house he did not build. 20Because he knew no ease in his belly, he will not keep the things he craved. 21Nothing was left over from his eating, and so his prosperity will not last. 22At the height of his plenty he will be squeezed; every hand of the wretched will come down on him.
The heavens uncover his guilt
23Just as he is filling his belly, God will loose his burning anger against him and rain it down on him for his food. 24He flees from the iron weapon, and a bronze bow shoots him through. 25He pulls it out and it comes clear of his back, the flashing point out of his gall. Terrors come over him. 26Total darkness is stored up for his treasures. A fire no one fanned devours him; it will go badly for whoever is left in his tent. 27The heavens uncover his guilt, and the earth rises up against him. 28The produce of his house is carried off, poured away on the day of his anger. 29This is the portion of a wicked man from God, the inheritance decreed for him by God.
