✧Then Zophar the Naamathite answered, ✧2“Therefore my thoughts answer me, even by reason of my haste that is in me. ✧3I have heard the reproof which puts me to shame. The spirit of my understanding answers me. ✧4Don’t you know this from old time, since man was placed on earth, ✧5that the triumphing of the wicked is short, the joy of the godless but for a moment? ✧6Though his height mount up to the heavens, and his head reach to the clouds, ✧7yet he will perish forever like his own dung. Those who have seen him will say, ‘Where is he?’ ✧8He will fly away as a dream, and will not be found. Yes, he will be chased away like a vision of the night. ✧9The eye which saw him will see him no more, neither will his place see him any more. ✧10His children will seek the favor of the poor. His hands will give back his wealth. ✧11His bones are full of his youth, but youth will lie down with him in the dust. ✧12“Though wickedness is sweet in his mouth, though he hide it under his tongue, ✧13though he spare it, and will not let it go, but keep it still within his mouth, ✧14yet his food in his bowels is turned. It is cobra venom 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 cobra venom. The viper’s tongue will kill him. ✧17He will not look at the rivers, the flowing streams of honey and butter. ✧18He will restore that for which he labored, and will not swallow it down. He will not rejoice according to the substance that he has gotten. ✧19For he has oppressed and forsaken the poor. He has violently taken away a house, and he will not build it up. ✧20“Because he knew no quietness within him, he will not save anything of that in which he delights. ✧21There was nothing left that he didn’t devour, therefore his prosperity will not endure. ✧22In the fullness of his sufficiency, distress will overtake him. The hand of everyone who is in misery will come on him. ✧23When he is about to fill his belly, God will cast the fierceness of his wrath on him. It will rain on him while he is eating. ✧24He will flee from the iron weapon. The bronze arrow will strike him through. ✧25He draws it out, and it comes out of his body. Yes, the glittering point comes out of his liver. Terrors are on him. ✧26All darkness is laid up for his treasures. An unfanned fire will devour him. It will consume that which is left in his tent. ✧27The heavens will reveal his iniquity. The earth will rise up against him. ✧28The increase of his house will depart. They will rush away in the day of his wrath. ✧29This is the portion of a wicked man from God, the heritage appointed to him by God.”