Zophar: Triumph of the Wicked Short-lived

1Then Sophar the Naamathite answered, and said:

2Therefore various thoughts succeed one another in me, and my mind is hurried away to different things.

3The doctrine with which thou reprovest me, I will hear, and the spirit of my understanding shall answer for me.

4This I know from the beginning, since man was placed upon the earth,

5that the praise of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment.

6If his pride mount up even to heaven, and his head touch the clouds:

7In the end he shall be destroyed like a dunghill, and they that has seen him shall say: Where is he?

8As a dream that fleeth away he shall not be found, he shall pass as a vision of the night:

9The eyes that had seen him, shall see him no more, neither shall his place any more behold him.

10His children shall be oppressed with want, and his hands shall render him his sorrow.

11His bones shall be filled with the vices of his youth, and they shall sleep with him in the dust.

12For when evil shall be sweet in his mouth, he will hide it under his tongue.

13He will spare it, and not leave it, and will hide it in his throat.

14His bread in his belly shall be turned into the gall of asps within him.

15The riches which he hath swallowed; he shall vomit up, and God shall draw them out of his belly.

16He shall suck the head of asps, and the viper's tongue shall kill him.

17(Let him not see the streams of the river, the brooks of honey and of butter.)

18He shall be punished for all that he did, and yet shall not be consumed: according to the multitude of his devices so also shall he suffer.

19Because he broke in and stripped the poor: he hath violently taken away a house which he did not build.

20And yet his belly was not filled: and when he hath the things he coveted, he shall not be able to possess them.

21There was nothing left of his meat, and therefore nothing shall continue of his goods:

22When he shall be filled, he shall be straitened, he shall burn, and every sorrow shall fall upon him.

23May his belly be filled, that God may send forth the wrath of his indignation upon him, and rain down his war upon him.

24He shall flee from weapons of iron, and shall fall upon a bow of brass.

25The sword is drawn out, and cometh forth from its scabbard, and glittereth in his bitterness: the terrible ones shall go and come upon him.

26All darkness is hid in his secret places: a fire that is not kindled shall devour him, he shall be afflicted when left in his tabernacle.

27The heavens shall reveal his iniquity, and the earth shall rise up against him.

28The offspring of his house shall be exposed, he shall be pulled down in the day of God's wrath.

29This is the portion of a wicked man from God, and the inheritance of his doings from the Lord.