Job 20:1-29
20 And Sophar the Naʽamathite answered
2 * “For that my thoughts give me response,and by reason of it I am hurried on.
3 I hear a tutoring that humiliates meand wind rather than sense answers me—
4 Have you known this from of yore,since man was set on earth?
5 For wrong-doers’ caroling is shortsighted,and an ungodly man’s merrymaking is momentary.
6 If he lifts his crest to the skyand his head touches the cloud,
7 Like his dung he perishes utterly;those who saw him say ‘Where is he?’
8 Like a dream he takes wing and one cannot find him;he flits away like a vision of the night.
9 An eye has glimpsed him, but does so no more,and his place will not behold him again.
10 * His sons must give satisfaction to poor men,his hands give back his goods.
11 His bones are full of his virility,but with him it lies down in the clay.
12 If evil is sweet in his mouth,he hides it under his tongue,
13 Saves it up, will not let go of it,keeps it snug in the roof of his mouth,
14 * His dinner turns in his bowels,he has vipers’ gall within him,
15 He has swallowed wealth but must throw it up,Deity ousts it from his stomach.
16 He sucks vipers’ poison,a sand-adder’s tongue will kill him.
17 * He must never look on outflows of oil,streams of honey and clabber.
18 * Because of old age he will not swallow what he has spent hisstrength on,he will not be gay in proportion to the wealth he has traded for,
19 Because he victimized and abandoned poor men,stole a house, and does no building on it.
20 Because he had no quiet in his stomach,in his wishes he let nothing get away,
21 There was nothing left over from his eating,therefore his good time will not persist.
22 * In his full plenty let him come into distress,all the force of trouble come over him.
23 Let him have his bellyful,let Him turn His anger loose on himand shower it on him into his entrails.
24 He takes flight from arms of iron;a bow of bronze drives through him;
25 * He pulls and it comes out of his back,comes flashing away from his gall.Terrors are upon him;
26 * all darkness lurks for him.Let an unblown fire consume him,feed on survivors in his tent;
27 Let the heavens uncover his guiltand earth be an adversary to him;
28 Let the progeny of his house be swept out of the country,drifted wreckage on the day of His anger.
29 This is a wicked man’s lot from God,and the estate named for him by Deity.”
Footnotes
^ 20:2 Codd. and by reason of my hurry within me (end of verse)
^ 20:10 Susp.
^ 20:14 Conj. It turns to venom in
^ 20:17 Codd. on canals, river-streams of
^ 20:18 Susp.; codd. Returning gain he will not swallow it, will not be
^ 20:22 Var.* sufferers’ hands all come over him
^ 20:25 Lit. a flash of lightning goes away from
^ 20:26 Var. lurks for his stores
