📖 Job 20
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Zophar’s Second Speech Then Zophar the Naamathite answered:
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“This is why my troubled thoughts bring me back– because of my feelings within me.
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When I hear a reproof that dishonors me, then my understanding prompts me to answer.
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“Surely you know that it has been from old, ever since humankind was placed on the earth,
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that the elation of the wicked is brief, the joy of the godless lasts but a moment.
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Even though his stature reaches to the heavens and his head touches the clouds,
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he will perish forever, like his own excrement; those who used to see him will say,‘Where is he?’
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Like a dream he flies away, never again to be found, and like a vision of the night he is put to flight.
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People who had seen him will not see him again, and the place where he was will recognize him no longer.
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His sons must recompense the poor; his own hands must return his wealth.
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His bones were full of his youthful vigor, but that vigor will lie down with him in the dust.
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“If evil is sweet in his mouth and he hides it under his tongue,
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if he retains it for himself and does not let it go, and holds it fast in his mouth,
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his food is turned sour in his stomach; it becomes the venom of serpents within him.
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The wealth that he consumed he vomits up, God will make him throw it out of his stomach.
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He sucks the poison of serpents; the fangs of a viper kill him.
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He will not look on the streams, the rivers, which are the torrents of honey and butter.
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He gives back the ill-gotten gain without assimilating it; he will not enjoy the wealth from his commerce.
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For he has oppressed the poor and abandoned them; he has seized a house which he did not build.
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For he knows no satisfaction in his appetite; he does not let anything he desires escape.
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“Nothing is left for him to devour; that is why his prosperity does not last.
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In the fullness of his sufficiency, distress overtakes him. The full force of misery will come upon him.
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“While he is filling his belly, God sends his burning anger against him, and rains down his blows upon him.
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If he flees from an iron weapon, then an arrow from a bronze bow pierces him.
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When he pulls it out and it comes out of his back, the gleaming point out of his liver, terrors come over him.
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Total darkness waits to receive his treasures; a fire which has not been kindled will consume him and devour what is left in his tent.
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The heavens reveal his iniquity; the earth rises up against him.
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A flood will carry off his house, rushing waters on the day of God’s wrath.
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Such is the lot God allots the wicked, and the heritage of his appointment from God.”