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