Zophar Speaks: The Wicked Will Suffer

¹Then Zophar the Naamathite answered:[#Job 2:11]

²“Therefore my thoughts cause me to answer,

and for this I make haste.

³I have heard the rebuke that disgraces me,

and the spirit of my understanding causes me to answer.

⁴“Do you not know this of old,

since man was placed upon earth,

⁵that the triumphing of the wicked is short,

and the joy of the hypocrite is but for a moment?

⁶Though his loftiness extends to the heavens,[#Isa 14:13–14; Ob 3–4]

and his head reaches to the clouds,

⁷yet he will perish forever like his own excrement;

those who have seen him will say, ‘Where is he?’

⁸He will fly away like a dream and will not be found;[#Ps 73:20; 90:5]

yes, he will be chased away as a vision of the night.

⁹The eye that saw him will see him no more;[#Job 7:8]

nor will his place behold him anymore.

¹⁰His children will seek favor from the poor,

and his hands will give back his wealth.

¹¹His bones are full of his youthful vigor,[#Job 13:26]

but it will lie down with him in the dust.

¹²“Though evil is sweet in his mouth,

and he hides it under his tongue,

¹³though he spares it and does not forsake it,

but keeps it in his mouth,

¹⁴yet his food in his stomach turns sour;

it becomes the venom of cobras within him.

¹⁵He has swallowed down riches,

and he will vomit them up again;

God will cast them out of his belly.

¹⁶He will suck the poison of cobras;

the viper’s tongue will slay him.

¹⁷He will not see the streams, the rivers,

the brooks of honey and butter.

¹⁸He will give back the produce of labor and will not swallow it down.[#Job 20:10; #Job 20:15]

According to his wealth the restitution will be, and he will not rejoice in it;

¹⁹because he has oppressed and has forsaken the poor.[#Job 35:9]

He has violently taken away a house that he did not build.

²⁰“Because he knows no quietness in his belly,

he will not save anything he desired.

²¹Nothing is left for him to eat;

therefore his prosperity will not endure.

²²In his self-sufficiency he will be in distress;

every hand of misery will come upon him.

²³When he is about to fill his belly,

God will cast the fury of His wrath on him

and will rain it on him while he is eating.

²⁴He will flee from the iron weapon;[#Isa 24:18; Am 5:19]

a bronze bow will pierce him through.

²⁵It is drawn and comes out of the body;

yes, the glittering point comes out of his gall.

Terrors are upon him.

²⁶Total darkness is stored up for his treasures.

An unfanned fire will consume him;

what is left in his tent will be consumed.

²⁷The heavens will reveal his iniquity,

and the earth will rise up against him.

²⁸The increase of his house will depart,

and his goods will flow away in the day of His wrath.

²⁹This is the wicked man’s portion from God,

and the inheritance appointed to him by God.”