Job 20

¹Then Zophar the Naamathite made answer and said,

²For this cause my thoughts are troubling me and driving me on.

³I have to give ear to arguments which put me to shame, and your answers to me are wind without wisdom.

⁴Have you knowledge of this from early times, when man was placed on the earth,

⁵That the pride of the sinner is short, and the joy of the evil-doer but for a minute?

⁶Though he is lifted up to the heavens, and his head goes up to the clouds;

⁷Like the waste from his body he comes to an end for ever: those who have seen him say, Where is he?

⁸He is gone like a dream, and is not seen again; he goes in flight like a vision of the night.

⁹The eye which saw him sees him no longer; and his place has no more knowledge of him.

¹⁰His children are hoping that the poor will be kind to them, and his hands give back his wealth.

¹¹His bones are full of young strength, but it will go down with him into the dust.

¹²Though evil-doing is sweet in his mouth, and he keeps it secretly under his tongue;

¹³Though he takes care of it, and does not let it go, but keeps it still in his mouth;

¹⁴His food becomes bitter in his stomach; the poison of snakes is inside him.

¹⁵He takes down wealth as food, and sends it up again; it is forced out of his stomach by God.