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20:1  Then Zophar the Na’amathite responded:
20:2  This is why my troubled thoughts make me respond again, and why my thoughts are racing through my mind:
20:3  I heard a rebuke that insults me, so my spirit prompts me to respond with understanding.
20:4  Don’t you know this? From ancient times, from the time when Adam was placed on the earth,
20:5  the triumphant cry of the wicked has been short-lived, and the joy of the godless lasts only a moment.
20:6  Although his arrogance reaches up to the skies, and his head touches the clouds,
20:7  he will perish forever like his own filth. Those who saw him will say, “Where is he?”
20:8  Like a dream, he flies away, and he cannot be found. Like a vision during the night, he flutters away.
20:9  An eye catches sight of him, but it does not see him again. His place will no longer look at him.
20:10  His children must make restitution to the poor. His hands must give back his wealth.
20:11  His bones were once filled with youthful vigor, but that vigor will lie down with him in the dust.
20:12  If evil tastes sweet in his mouth, and he tucks it under his tongue,
20:13  if he hoards it for himself, and he does not let it go, but savors it on his palate,
20:14  his food will turn into cobra venom in his stomach.
20:15  He swallowed wealth, but he vomits it up. God makes him expel it from his belly.
20:16  He sucks the poison of cobras. The fangs of a viper kill him.
20:17  He will not see the streams, the rivers that flow with honey and cream.
20:18  Without digesting it, he gives up the produce for which he labored. He does not enjoy the wealth for which he traded,
20:19  because he has crushed and abandoned the poor, and he has stolen a house he did not build.
20:20  His stomach is never filled. He cannot satisfy his desires,
20:21  because now there is nothing left for him to eat, so his prosperity will not endure.
20:22  Even when he has plenty, distress catches up with him, and misery grabs hold of him.
20:23  While he is filling his belly, God will send burning anger upon him, and it will rain down on his body.
20:24  He flees from iron weapons, but he is pierced by a bronze arrow.
20:25  He pulls the arrow out of his back, and the shiny point comes out of his liver. Terrors come over him.
20:26  Complete darkness is lying in wait for his hidden treasures. A fire that needs no fanning will consume him. It will destroy anything that survives in his tent.
20:27  The heavens will uncover his guilt, and the earth will rise up against him.
20:28  A flood will carry away his house, sweeping away his possessions on the day of God’s wrath.
20:29  This is God’s sentence on the evil man. This is his heritage decreed by God.