1Then Zophar the Naamathite answered and said,
2"My thoughts make me answer, and this is why I hurry to speak."
3"I have heard myself rebuked and shamed, and the spirit of my understanding makes me answer."
4"Do you not know this from of old, ever since man was placed on the earth,"
5"that the triumph of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite lasts only a moment?"
6"Though he rises up to the heavens, and his head reaches the clouds,"
7"yet he will perish for ever like his own dung. Those who have seen him will say, 'Where is he?'"
8"He will fly away like a dream, and will not be found. He will be chased away like a vision of the night."
9"The eye that saw him will see him no more, and his place will look on him no more."
10"His children will try to please the poor, and his own hands will give back their goods."
11"His bones are full of the sin of his youth, and it will lie down with him in the dust."
12"Though wickedness is sweet in his mouth, though he hides it under his tongue;"
13"though he saves it and will not let it go, but keeps it still inside his mouth,"
14"yet his food turns sour in his stomach. It becomes the poison of snakes inside him."
15"He has swallowed down riches, and he will vomit them up again. God will cast them out of his belly."
16"He will suck the poison of snakes. The viper's tongue will kill him."
17"He will not see the rivers, the flowing streams of honey and butter."
18"What he worked for he will give back, and will not swallow it down. He will pay back as much as he gained, and he will have no joy in it."
19"For he has crushed the poor and left them, and has taken by force a house he did not build."
20"Surely he will feel no quiet inside him. He will keep nothing of what he desired."
21"None of his food will be left over, so no one will look for his goods."
22"When he has plenty and more, he will be in trouble. Every hand of the wicked will come against him."
23"When he is about to fill his belly, God will throw the fury of his anger on him, and will rain it down on him while he is eating."
24"He will flee from the iron weapon, and the bow of steel will shoot him through."
25"It is pulled out, and comes out of his body. The shining sword comes out of his gall. Terrors are upon him."
26"All darkness will be hidden in his secret places. A fire that no one fanned will burn him up. Whoever is left in his tent will suffer harm."
27"The heavens will reveal his sin, and the earth will rise up against him."
28"The riches of his house will go away, and his goods will flow away in the day of God's anger."
29"This is the share of a wicked man from God, the inheritance that God has appointed for him."