20:1 Then answered Zophar the Naamathite, and said:

20:2 Therefore do my thoughts cause me to answer, and for [this] I make haste:

20:3 I have heard the check of my reproach, and the spirit of my understanding causeth me to answer:

20:4 Knowest thou [not] this of old, since man was placed upon earth:

20:5 That the triumphing of the wicked [is] short, and the joy of the hypocrite [but] for a moment:

20:6 Though his excellency mount up to the heavens, and his head reach unto the clouds:

20:7 Yet he shall perish for ever like his own dung: they which have seen him shall say, Where [is] he:

20:8 He shall fly away as a dream, and shall not be found: yea, he shall be chased away as a vision of the night:

20:9 The eye also [which] saw him shall [see him] no more; neither shall his place any more behold him:

20:10 His children shall seek to please the poor, and his hands shall restore their goods:

20:11 His bones are full [of the sin] of his youth, which shall lie down with him in the dust:

20:12 Though wickedness be sweet in his mouth, [though] he hide it under his tongue:

20:13 Though he spare it, and forsake it not; but keep it still within his mouth:

20:14 Yet his meat in his bowels is turned, [it is] the gall of asps within him:

20:15 He hath swallowed down riches, and he shall vomit them up again: God shall cast them out of his belly:

20:16 He shall suck the poison of asps: the viper' s tongue shall slay him:

20:17 He shall not see the rivers, the floods, the brooks of honey and butter:

20:18 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:

20:19 Because he hath oppressed [and] hath forsaken the poor; [because] he hath violently taken away an house which he builded not:

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

20:21 There shall none of his meat be left; therefore shall no man look for his goods:

20:22 In the fulness of his sufficiency he shall be in straits: every hand of the wicked shall come upon him:

20:23 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:

20:24 He shall flee from the iron weapon, [and] the bow of steel shall strike him through:

20:25 It is drawn, and cometh out of the body; yea, the glittering sword cometh out of his gall: terrors [are] upon him:

20:26 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:

20:27 The heaven shall reveal his iniquity; and the earth shall rise up against him:

20:28 The increase of his house shall depart, [and his goods] shall flow away in the day of his wrath:

20:29 This [is] the portion of a wicked man from God, and the heritage appointed unto him by God: