1   The Zophar the Naamathite answered:

2   My distress of mind forces me to reply,
and this is why ^note I hasten to speak:
3   I have heard arguments that are a reproach to me,
a spirit beyond my understanding gives me the answers.
4   Surely you know that this has been so since time began,
since man was first set on the earth:
5   the triumph of the wicked is short-lived,
the glee of the godless lasts but a moment?
6   Though he stands high as heaven,
and his head touches the clouds,
7   he will be swept utterly away like his own dung,
and all that saw him will say, ‘Where is he?’
8   He will fly away like a dream and be lost,
driven off like a vision of the night;
9   the eye which glimpsed him shall do so no more
and shall never again see him in his place.
11    ^note The youth and strength which filled his bones
shall lie with him in the dust.
10   His sons will pay court to the poor,
and their ^note hands will give back his wealth.
12   Though evil tastes sweet in his mouth,
and he savours it, rolling it round his tongue,
13   though he lingers over it and will not let it go,
and holds it back on his palate,
14   yet his food turns in his stomach,
changing to asps' venom within him.

Second cycle of speeches
15   He gulps down wealth, then vomits it up,
or God makes him discharge it.
16   He sucks the poison of asps,
and the tongue of the viper kills him.
17   Not for him to swill down rivers of cream ^note
or torrents of honey and curds;
18   he must give back his gains without swallowing them,
and spew up his profit undigested;
19   for he has hounded and harassed the poor,
he has seized houses which he did not build.
20   Because his appetite gave him no rest,
and he cannot escape his own desires,
21   nothing is left for him to eat,
and so his well-being does not last;
22   with every need satisfied his troubles begin,
and the full force of hardship strikes him.
^note 23   God vents his anger upon him
and rains on him cruel blows.
24   He is wounded by weapons of iron
and pierced by a bronze-tipped arrow;
25   out at his back the point comes,
the gleaming tip from his gall-bladder. ^note
26   Darkness unrelieved awaits him, ^note
a fire that needs no fanning will consume him.
[Woe betide any survivor in his tent!]
27   The heavens will lay bare his guilt,
and earth will rise up to condemn him.
28   A flood will sweep away his house,
rushing waters on the day of wrath.
29   Such is God's reward for the wicked man
and the lot appointed for the rebel ^note by God.

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