And Zophar the Naamathite answered and said,
Therefore do my thoughts give answer to me,{HR}And hence my haste in me.
A reprimand to my shame I have to hear;{HR}Yet the spirit of my understanding answereth for me.
Knowest thou this from of old,{HR}From the placing of man on the earth?
From near [is] the triumphing of the wicked,{HR}And the joy of the ungodly for a moment.
Though his height mount to the heavens,{HR}And his head reach the cloud,
Like his dung he perisheth forever;{HR}They that saw him shall say, Where [is] he?
Like a dream shall he fly away, and not be found,{HR}And he shall be scared away like a vision of the night.
The eye scanned him, [but] not again;{HR}And his place beholdeth him no more.
His children shall seek to please the poor,{HR}And his hands give back his wealth.
His bones were full of youthful vigour,{HR}Which will lie with him in the dust.
Though evil maketh sweet in his mouth —{HR}He hideth it under his tongue,
He is sparing of it, and will not let it go,{HR}And retaineth it in the midst of his palate —
His food is changed in his bowels,{HR}The poison of asps is within him.
Wealth hath he swallowed, and shall disgorge it:{HR}God will eject it again out of his belly.
He shall suck the poison of asps:{HR}The tongue of the viper shall slay him.
He shall not gaze on rivulets,{HR}Flowings of streams of honey and butter.
What he laboured for, he shall restore, and not swallow.{HR}As the property his exchange, and he rejoiceth not,
For he crushed, abandoned, the poor,{HR}Seized a house, and built it not;
For he knew no rest in his belly;{HR}He shall not escape with his desirable thing,
There is no remnant of his eating.{HR}Therefore his prosperity endureth not.
In the fullness of his superfluity he is straitened,{HR}Every hand of a wretch shall be upon him.
That it may be to the filling of his belly,{HR}He shall send against him the burning of his anger,{HR}And rain upon him with his food.
He fleeth from a weapon of iron,{HR}A bow of copper pierceth him through;
It is drawn, and it cometh out of the body,{HR}And the glittering sword proceedeth out of his gall:{HR}Upon him [are] terrors.
All darkness [is] hid for his treasures,{HR}A fire not blown consumeth him;{HR}It shall fare ill with what is left in his tent.
The heavens reveal his iniquity,{HR}And the earth riseth up against him.
The increase of his house departeth,{HR}Things that ran away in the day of his anger.
This [is] the portion of the wicked man from God [Elohim],{HR}And the heritage of his sentence from God [El].