20:1 Then Zophar the Naamathite answered:
20:2 “This is why my troubled thoughts bring me back — because of my feelings within me.
20:3 When I hear a reproof that dishonors me, then my understanding prompts me to answer.
20:4 “Surely you know that it has been from old, ever since mankind was placed on the earth,
20:5 that the elation of the wicked is brief, the joy of the godless lasts but for a moment.
20:6 Even though his stature reaches to the heavens and his head touches the clouds,
20:7 he will perish forever, like his own excrement; those who used to see him will say, ‘Where is he?’
20:8 Like a dream he flies away, never again to be found, and like a vision of the night he is put to flight.
20:9 People who had seen him will not see him again, and the place where he was will recognize him no longer.
20:10 His sons must recompense the poor; his own hands must return his wealth.
20:11 His bones were full of his youthful vigor, but it will lie down with him in the dust.
20:12 “If evil is sweet in his mouth and he hides it under his tongue,
20:13 if he retains it for himself and does not let it go, and holds it fast in his mouth,
20:14 his food is turned sour in his stomach; it becomes the venom of serpents within him.
20:15 The wealth that he consumed he vomits up, God will make him throw it out of his belly.
20:16 He sucks the poison of serpents; the fangs of a viper kill him.
20:17 He will not look on the streams, the rivers, which are the torrents of honey and butter.
20:18 He gives back the ill-gotten gain without assimilating it; he will not enjoy the wealth from his exchange.
20:19 For he has oppressed the poor and abandoned them; he has seized a house which he did not build.