Zophar: Destruction Awaits the Wicked

1And Zophar the Naamathite answered and said:

2“So my anxious thoughts make me answer,

because of my urgency within me.

3The rebuke of my shaming I have heard,

and a spirit from my understanding answers for me.

4This do you know from long ago,

from the placing of man upon the earth,

5that the triumph of the wicked is brief,

and the rejoicing of the godless is for a moment?

6Though his loftiness should go up to the heavens,

and his head should touch to the clouds,

7like his dung, forever he will perish;

those having seen him will say, ‘Where is he?’

8Like a dream he will fly away and they will not find him;

indeed he will be made to wander like a vision of the night.

9The eye that saw him will not continue,

and his place will not behold him again.

10His children will recompense the poor,

and his hands will return his wealth.

11His bones are full of his vigor,

and upon the dust it will lie down with him.

12Though evil is sweet in his mouth,

and he hides it under his tongue,

13he has pity on it and does not forsake it,

and he withholds it in the midst of his palate.

14His food is turned over in his belly,

and the venom of cobras is in his heart.

15He swallows wealth and vomits it;

from his belly God expels it.

16The poison of cobras he will suck,

and the tongue of a viper will kill him.

17He shall not look on streams,

or rivers with torrents of honey and cream.

18He will return his gain and not consume it;

he will not rejoice from the wealth of his exchange.

19For he has crushed and forsaken the poor;

he has seized a house, and he did not build it.

20For he has not known quiet in his belly,

and with his desiring he will not deliver himself.

21There is no remnant for him to eat;

and upon thus his prosperity will not endure.

22In the fullness of his sufficiency there will be distress for him;

every hand of toil will come upon him.

23It will come to pass at the filling of his belly,

that God will send forth against him the burning of His anger,

and will rain upon him into his bowels.

24He will flee from a weapon of iron;

a bow of bronze will pierce him through.

25It is drawn and comes out from his back,

and the gleaming point from his gall;†

terrors shall come over him.

26Complete darkness is hidden for his treasuring;

a fire that is not fanned will consume him,

the remnant in his tent will be devoured.

27The heavens will uncover his iniquity,

and the earth will rise up against him.

28The flood will roll away his house,

flowing away on the day of His anger.

29This is the portion of a wicked man from God,

and the heritage appointed to him from God.”