1And Zophar the Naamathite answers and says:

2“Therefore my thoughts cause me to answer, || And because of my sensations in me.

3I hear the discipline of my shame, || And the spirit of my understanding causes me to answer:

4Have you known this from antiquity? Since the placing of man on earth?

5That the singing of the wicked [is] short, || And the joy of the profane for a moment,

6Though his excellence goes up to the heavens, || He strikes his head against a cloud—

7He perishes as his own dung forever, || His beholders say, Where [is] he?

8He flees as a dream, and they do not find him, || And he is driven away as a vision of the night,

9The eye has not seen him, and does not add. And his place does not behold him again.

10His sons oppress the poor, || And his hands give back his wealth.

11His bones have been full of his youth, and it lies down with him on the dust.

12Though he sweetens evil in his mouth, hides it under his tongue,

13has pity on it, and does not forsake it, and keeps it back in the midst of his palate,

14his food is turned in his bowels, the bitterness of cobras [is] in his heart.

15He has swallowed wealth, and vomits it. God drives it out from his belly.

16He sucks [the] gall of cobras, the tongue of a viper slays him.

17He does not look on streams, || Flowing of brooks of honey and butter.

18He is giving back [what] he labored for, and does not consume [it]; As a bulwark [is] his exchange, and he does not exult.

19For he oppressed—he forsook the poor, || He has taken a house away violently, || And he does not build it.

20For he has not known ease in his belly. With his desirable thing he does not deliver himself.

21There is not a remnant to his food, || Therefore his good does not stay.

22In the fullness of his sufficiency he is constricted. Every perverse hand meets him.

23It comes to pass, at the filling of his belly, || He sends forth against him || The fierceness of His anger, || Indeed, He rains on him in his eating.

24He flees from an iron weapon, || A bow of bronze passes through him.

25One has drawn, || And it comes out from the body, || And a glittering weapon proceeds from his gall. Terrors [are] on him.

26All darkness is hid for his treasures, || A fire not blown consumes him, || The remnant is broken in his tent.

27The heavens reveal his iniquity, || And earth is raising itself against him.

28The increase of his house is removed, || Poured forth in a day of His anger.

29This [is] the portion of a wicked man from God. And an inheritance appointed him by God.”