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20:1  Zophar the Naamathite reiterated his concern for Job.
20:2  Zophar: My anguished thoughts force me to respond because I feel an urgency within myself.
20:3  I caught wind of your words that dishonor me, but I am prompted to answer based on my own spirit and understanding.
20:4  Don’t you know how it has always been? Since humankind was first put here on the earth,
20:5  The celebrations of the wicked have been brief, and the joy of the profane lasts only a moment.
20:6  Even if he were tall enough to reach into the heavens and his head were to reach to the clouds,
20:7  He would still perish forever, like his own excrement; those who once looked upon him would wonder, “Where has he gone?”
20:8  Like a dream, he flies off where no one can find him; he is chased away only to vanish into the air like a vision of the night.
20:9  The eyes that saw him before see him no more; his home doesn’t ever welcome him again.
20:10  His children beg at the door of the poor; his hands render his wealth back to them.
20:11  The vigor of youth had a home, a residence in his bones, but it lies down in the dust with him.
20:12  Though his wrongdoing is sweet in his mouth, though he hides it under his tongue,
20:13  Though he holds it close and will not let it go (but must keep it in his mouth),
20:14  His food will be transformed within him into the bitter venom of the asp.
20:15  The wealth he has swallowed will be poison. He will vomit it up—God will cast it out.
20:16  It is as they say, “He sucks the venom of asps and is slain by the tongue of the viper.”
20:17  Never again will he gaze at the brook’s edge or see streams that flow with milk and honey—
20:18  The food for which he worked he vomits up or cannot swallow, and the gains of his trading, he can never enjoy.
20:19  After all, he’s an oppressor; he’s crushed and forsaken the poor; he made his home in a house he stole from another, a house he did not build himself.
20:20  Because he’s never known inner peace, he has seized everything he’s ever craved.
20:21  Because he consumed all he could see, nothing is left; his prosperity cannot last.
20:22  When he is fat with satisfaction, the belt of distress will tighten around him and the hands of the downtrodden will rise up against him.
20:23  When he has filled up his belly, God will visit him with His ferocious anger; it will rain down on him while he is eating.
20:24  Let him attempt to escape the iron weapon. Instead, a bow of bronze will send death to tear into him.
20:25  When the arrow is drawn it comes out of his back, and the shining arrowhead comes out of his organ, bringing terror upon him.
20:26  A great darkness waits for and stalks everything he values. A mysterious fire—unstoked yet burning hot—will consume him and devour everything and everyone left behind in his tent.
20:27  The skies will tell on him, exposing his wrongdoing; the earth will rebel against him.
20:28  All that he labored to build will be carried off, washed away in the day of God’s furious anger.
20:29  This is how it will be for the wicked of humanity before God; this is the inheritance God bequeaths them.