| Chapter 20 |
1 |
Then Sophar the Naamathite answered, and said: |
2 |
Therefore various thoughts succeed one another in me, and my mind is hurried away to different things. |
3 |
The doctrine with which thou reprovest me, I will hear, and the spirit of my understanding shall answer for me. |
4 |
This I know from the beginning, since man was placed upon the earth, |
5 |
that the praise of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment. |
6 |
If his pride mount up even to heaven, and his head touch the clouds: |
7 |
In the end he shall be destroyed like a dunghill, and they that has seen him shall say: Where is he? |
8 |
As a dream that fleeth away he shall not be found, he shall pass as a vision of the night: |
9 |
The eyes that had seen him, shall see him no more, neither shall his place any more behold him. |
10 |
His children shall be oppressed with want, and his hands shall render him his sorrow. |
11 |
His bones shall be filled with the vices of his youth, and they shall sleep with him in the dust. |
12 |
For when evil shall be sweet in his mouth, he will hide it under his tongue. |
13 |
He will spare it, and not leave it, and will hide it in his throat. |
14 |
His bread in his belly shall be turned into the gall of asps within him. |
15 |
The riches which he hath swallowed; he shall vomit up, and God shall draw them out of his belly. |
16 |
He shall suck the head of asps, and the viper's tongue shall kill him. |
17 |
(Let him not see the streams of the river, the brooks of honey and of butter.) |
18 |
He shall be punished for all that he did, and yet shall not be consumed: according to the multitude of his devices so also shall he suffer. |
19 |
Because he broke in and stripped the poor: he hath violently taken away a house which he did not build. |
20 |
And yet his belly was not filled: and when he hath the things he coveted, he shall not be able to possess them. |
21 |
There was nothing left of his meat, and therefore nothing shall continue of his goods: |
22 |
When he shall be filled, he shall be straitened, he shall burn, and every sorrow shall fall upon him. |
23 |
May his belly be filled, that God may send forth the wrath of his indignation upon him, and rain down his war upon him. |
24 |
He shall flee from weapons of iron, and shall fall upon a bow of brass. |
25 |
The sword is drawn out, and cometh forth from its scabbard, and glittereth in his bitterness: the terrible ones shall go and come upon him. |
26 |
All darkness is hid in his secret places: a fire that is not kindled shall devour him, he shall be afflicted when left in his tabernacle. |
27 |
The heavens shall reveal his iniquity, and the earth shall rise up against him. |
28 |
The offspring of his house shall be exposed, he shall be pulled down in the day of God's wrath. |
29 |
This is the portion of a wicked man from God, and the inheritance of his doings from the Lord. |
