Job 20
Zophar asserts that the wicked will ultimately face destruction and suffering, despite their temporary prosperity and joy. Their pride and evil deeds will lead to their downfall, and they will be repaid for their wrongdoings. The wicked will be consumed by their own vices and will suffer anguish and wrath from God. In the end, they will be forsaken and their sinfulness will be revealed to all.
Then Zophar the Naamathite answered by sayingIn response, various thoughts succeed one another in me, and my mind moves quickly through different ideasThe teaching you use to admonish me, I will hear, and the spirit of my understanding will respond for meThis, I know, is from the beginning, from the time that man was set over the earththat the praise of the impious shall be short, and the joy of the hypocrite lasts only a momentIf his pride ascends even towards the heavens, and his head touches the cloudsin the end, he will be destroyed like a trash heap, and those who had seen him will say: "Where is he?Like a dream that flies away, he will not be found; he will pass away like a nightmareThe eyes that had seen him, will not see him; no longer will his own place admire himHis sons will be worn away by poverty, and his own hands will deliver his grief to himHis bones will be filled with the vices of his youth, and they will sleep with him in the dustFor, when evil will be sweet in his mouth, he will hide it under his tongueHe will permit it, and not abandon it, and he will conceal it in his throatHis bread in his belly will be turned into the venom of snakes within himThe riches that he devours, he will vomit up, and from his stomach God will draw them outHe will suck the head of snakes, and the tongue of the viper will kill him(May he never see the streams of the river, the torrents of honey and butter.He will be repaid for all he has done, yet he will not be consumed; according to the multitude of his schemes, so also will he sufferFor, having broken in, he stripped the poor. He has quickly stolen away a house he did not buildAnd yet his stomach will not be satisfied, and when he has the things he desires, he will not be able to possess themNothing remained of his portion, and, because of this, nothing will continue of his kindWhen he will be satisfied, he will be constrained; he will seethe, and all anguish will fall upon himMay his stomach be filled, so that God may send forth the fury of his wrath to him and may rain down his battle upon himHe will flee from weapons of iron, and he will fall in an arc of brasswhich had been drawn and had issued forth from its sheath, glittering in its bitterness: the horrible ones will go forth and approach over himAll darkness has been hidden in his secrecy. A fire that has not been set will devour him; he will be thrown down and forsaken in his tabernacleThe heavens will reveal his sinfulness, and the earth will rise up against himThe offspring of his house will be exposed; he will be pulled down in the day of God’s wrathThis is the portion of a wicked man from God, and the inheritance of his words from the Lord
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