2.7 KiB
Zophar's Second Response to Job
Chapter 20
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Then Zophar the Naamathite replied:
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"I must reply
because I am greatly disturbed.
- I've had to endure your insults,
but now my spirit prompts me to reply.
- "Don't you realize that from the beginning of time,
ever since people were first placed on the earth,
- the triumph of the wicked has been short lived
and the joy of the godless has been only temporary?
- Though the pride of the godless reaches to the heavens
and their heads touch the clouds,
- yet they will vanish forever,
thrown away like their own dung.
Those who knew them will ask,
'Where are they?'
- They will fade like a dream and not be found.
They will vanish like a vision in the night.
- Those who once saw them will see them no more.
Their families will never see them again.
- Their children will beg from the poor,
for they must give back their stolen riches.
- Though they are young,
their bones will lie in the dust.
- "They enjoyed the sweet taste of wickedness,
letting it melt under their tongue.
- They savored it,
holding it long in their mouths.
- But suddenly the food in their bellies turns sour,
a poisonous venom in their stomach.
- They will vomit the wealth they swallowed.
God won't let them keep it down.
- They will suck the poison of cobras.
The viper will kill them.
- They will never again enjoy streams of olive oil
or rivers of milk and honey.
- They will give back everything they worked for.
Their wealth will bring them no joy.
- For they oppressed the poor and left them destitute.
They foreclosed on their homes.
- They were always greedy and never satisfied.
Nothing remains of all the things they dreamed about.
- Nothing is left after they finish gorging themselves.
Therefore, their prosperity will not endure.
- "In the midst of plenty, they will run into trouble
and be overcome by misery.
- May God give them a bellyful of trouble.
May God rain down his anger upon them.
- When they try to escape an iron weapon,
a bronze-tipped arrow will pierce them.
- The arrow is pulled from their back, and the arrowhead glistens with blood.
The terrors of death are upon them.
- Their treasures will be thrown into deepest darkness.
A wildfire will devour their goods,
consuming all they have left.
- The heavens will reveal their guilt,
and the earth will testify against them.
- A flood will sweep away their house.
God's anger will descend on them in torrents.
- This is the reward that God gives the wicked.
It is the inheritance decreed by God."