Zophar: Evil will come to an end
1Zophar of Naamath spoke next:
2My troubled thoughts move me to reply
for I have been feeling impatient.
3I hear a rebuke which puts me to shame,
and I am inspired to give an answer.
4You know how it has been from of old,
since man was placed on earth,
5that the triumph of the wicked is short
and the joy of the godless is but a moment.
6Though his pride reach to the heavens
and his head touch the clouds,
7he vanishes like a phantom;
those who have seen him ask where he is.
8Like a dream he takes flight,
like a vision of the night.
9The eye that met him sees him no more;
neither shall his dwelling shelter him again.
10His youthful frame that was full of vigor
shall at last lie with him in the dust.
11Evil was sweet in his mouth,
and he hid it under his tongue,
12He liked it and did not let it go
and still kept it within his mouth,
13yet his food turns sour
and becomes venom in his stomach.
14He vomits the riches he swallowed;
God compels his belly to belch it out.
15Because he sucked the poison of a viper,
he will be killed by the fangs of an adder.
16He will no longer see the streams of oil,
no rivers of honey and milk.
17He gives back the fruit of his toil: he could not swallow it.
18For he has oppressed the poor
and seized houses instead of building them.
19His children must make amends to his victims;
his own hands must pay back his riches.
20For his greed had no limit,
and no one could escape his appetite;
21he devoured them, one and all.
This is why his prosperity will not endure.
22In the midst of plenty, distress seizes him,
the full force of misery falls upon him.
23When his belly is filled God unloads his wrath upon him
and pelts him with his arrows.
24While he flees from an iron weapon,
the bronze bow strikes him down.
25A dart sticks in his back,
in his liver an arrow.
He is in the grip of a terrible fear;
26total darkness has been stored for him,
a fire which he did not kindle devours him and consumes whatever was left in his tent.
27The heavens will expose his guilt;
the earth will rise up against him.
28A flood will sweep away his house,
the waters of God’s wrath.
29Such is the fate of the wicked –
their lot which comes from God.
