Job, 20

1. Then answered Zophar the Naamathite, and said,

1. Zophar of Naamath spoke next:

2. Therefore do my thoughts cause me to answer, and for [this] I make haste.

2. My troubled thoughts move me to reply for I have been feeling impatient.

3. I have heard the check of my reproach, and the spirit of my understanding causeth me to answer.

3. I hear a rebuke which puts me to shame, and I am inspired to give an answer.

4. Knowest thou [not] this of old, since man was placed upon earth,

4. You know how it has been from of old, since man was placed on earth,

5. That the triumphing of the wicked [is] short, and the joy of the hypocrite [but] for a moment?

5. that the triumph of the wicked is short and the joy of the godless is but a moment.

6. Though his excellency mount up to the heavens, and his head reach unto the clouds;

6. Though his pride reach to the heavens and his head touch the clouds,

7. [Yet] he shall perish for ever like his own dung: they which have seen him shall say, Where [is] he?

7. he vanishes like a phantom; those who have seen him ask where he is.

8. He shall fly away as a dream, and shall not be found: yea, he shall be chased away as a vision of the night.

8. Like a dream he takes flight, like a vision of the night.

9. The eye also [which] saw him shall [see him] no more; neither shall his place any more behold him.

9. The eye that met him sees him no more; neither shall his dwelling shelter him again.

10. His children shall seek to please the poor, and his hands shall restore their goods.

10. His children must make amends to his victims; his own hands must pay back his riches.

11. His bones are full [of the sin] of his youth, which shall lie down with him in the dust.

11. His youthful frame that was full of vigor shall at last lie with him in the dust.

12. Though wickedness be sweet in his mouth, [though] he hide it under his tongue;

12. E vil was sweet in his mouth, and he hid it under his tongue,

13. [Though] he spare it, and forsake it not; but keep it still within his mouth:

13. He liked it and did not let it go and still kept it within his mouth,

14. [Yet] his meat in his bowels is turned, [it is] the gall of asps within him.

14. yet his food turns sour and becomes venom in his stomach.

15. He hath swallowed down riches, and he shall vomit them up again: God shall cast them out of his belly.

15. He vomits the riches he swallowed; God compels his belly to belch it out.

16. He shall suck the poison of asps: the viper's tongue shall slay him.

16. Because he sucked the poison of a viper, he will be killed by the fangs of an adder.

17. He shall not see the rivers, the floods, the brooks of honey and butter.

17. He will no longer see the streams of oil, no rivers of honey and milk.

18. That which he laboured for shall he restore, and shall not swallow [it] down: according to [his] substance [shall] the restitution [be], and he shall not rejoice [therein].

18. He gives back the fruit of his toil: he could not swallow it.

19. Because he hath oppressed [and] hath forsaken the poor; [because] he hath violently taken away an house which he builded not;

19. For he has oppressed the poor and seized houses instead of building them.

20. Surely he shall not feel quietness in his belly, he shall not save of that which he desired.

20. For his greed had no limit, and no one could escape his appetite;

21. There shall none of his meat be left; therefore shall no man look for his goods.

21. he devoured them, one and all. This is why his prosperity will not endure.

22. In the fulness of his sufficiency he shall be in straits: every hand of the wicked shall come upon him.

22. In the midst of plenty, distress seizes him, the full force of misery falls upon him.

23. [When] he is about to fill his belly, [God] shall cast the fury of his wrath upon him, and shall rain [it] upon him while he is eating.

23. When his belly is filled God unloads his wrath upon him and pelts him with his arrows.

24. He shall flee from the iron weapon, [and] the bow of steel shall strike him through.

24. While he flees from an iron weapon, the bronze bow strikes him down.

25. It is drawn, and cometh out of the body; yea, the glittering sword cometh out of his gall: terrors [are] upon him.

25. A dart sticks in his back, in his liver an arrow. He is in the grip of a terrible fear;

26. All darkness [shall be] hid in his secret places: a fire not blown shall consume him; it shall go ill with him that is left in his tabernacle.

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 heaven shall reveal his iniquity; and the earth shall rise up against him.

27. The heavens will expose his guilt; the earth will rise up against him.

28. The increase of his house shall depart, [and his goods] shall flow away in the day of his wrath.

28. A flood will sweep away his house, the waters of God's wrath.

29. This [is] the portion of a wicked man from God, and the heritage appointed unto him by God.

29. Such is the fate of the wicked - their lot which comes from God.