Job 20

CATHOLIC PUBLIC DOMAIN	NEW JERUSALEM
1 Then Zophar the Naamathite answered by saying:	1 Zophar of Naamath spoke next. He said:
2 In response, various thoughts succeed one another in me, and my mind moves quickly through different ideas.	2 My thoughts urge me to reply to this, and hence the impatience that grips me.
3 The teaching you use to admonish me, I will hear, and the spirit of my understanding will respond for me.	3 I have put up with prating that outrages me and now my mind inspires me with an answer.
4 This, I know, is from the beginning, from the time that man was set over the earth:	4 Do you not know, that since time began and human beings were set on the earth,
5 that the praise of the impious shall be short, and the joy of the hypocrite lasts only a moment.	5 the triumph of the wicked has always been brief, and the sinner's gladness has never lasted long?
6 If his pride ascends even towards the heavens, and his head touches the clouds,	6 Towering to the sky he may have been, his head touching the clouds;
7 in the end, he will be destroyed like a trash heap, and those who had seen him will say: “Where is he?”	7 but he vanishes, like a phantom, once for al , while those who used to see him, ask, 'Where is he?'
8 Like a dream that flies away, he will not be found; he will pass away like a nightmare.	8 Like a dream that leaves no trace he takes his flight, like a vision in the night he flies away.
9 The eyes that had seen him, will not see him; no longer will his own place admire him.	9 The eye accustomed to see him sees him no more, his home wil never set eyes on him again.
10 His sons will be worn away by poverty, and his own hands will deliver his grief to him.	10 His sons will have to reimburse the poor and his children pay back his riches.
11 His bones will be filled with the vices of his youth, and they will sleep with him in the dust.	11 His bones used to be ful of youthful vigour: and there it lies, in the dust with him, now!
12 For, when evil will be sweet in his mouth, he will hide it under his tongue.	12 Evil was sweet to his mouth, he would shelter it under his tongue;
13 He will permit it, and not abandon it, and he will conceal it in his throat.	13 cultivating it careful y, he would let it linger on his palate.
14 His bread in his belly will be turned into the venom of snakes within him.	14 Such food goes bad in his bel y, working inside him like the poison of a viper.
15 The riches that he devours, he will vomit up, and from his stomach God will draw them out.	15 Now he has to vomit up the wealth that he has swal owed, God makes him disgorge it.
16 He will suck the head of snakes, and the tongue of the viper will kill him.	16 He used to suck vipers' venom, and the tongue of the adder kills him.
17 (May he never see the streams of the river, the torrents of honey and butter.)	17 No more will he know the streams of oil or the torrents of honey and cream.
18 He will be repaid for all he has done, yet he will not be consumed; according to the multitude of his schemes, so also will he suffer.	18 When he gives back his winnings, his cheerfulness wil fade, and the satisfied air he had whenbusiness was thriving.
19 For, having broken in, he stripped the poor. He has quickly stolen away a house he did not build.	19 Since he once destroyed the huts of the poor, plundering houses instead of building them up,
20 And yet his stomach will not be satisfied, and when he has the things he desires, he will not be able to possess them.	20 since his avarice could never be satisfied, now al his hoarding will not save him;
21 Nothing remained of his portion, and, because of this, nothing will continue of his kind.	21 since nothing could escape his greed, his prosperity wil not last.
22 When he will be satisfied, he will be constrained; he will seethe, and all anguish will fall upon him.	22 When he has everything he needs, want wil seize him, and misery wil light on him with all its force.
23 May his stomach be filled, so that God may send forth the fury of his wrath to him and may rain down his battle upon him.	23 On him God looses al his burning wrath, hurling against his flesh a hail of arrows.
24 He will flee from weapons of iron, and he will fall in an arc of brass,	24 If he escapes the weapons of iron, the bow of bronze wil transfix him.
25 which had been drawn and had issued forth from its sheath, glittering in its bitterness: the horrible ones will go forth and approach over him.	25 Out of his back sticks an arrow, from his gal a shining point. The terrors advance on him,
26 All darkness has been hidden in his secrecy. A fire that has not been set will devour him; he will be thrown down and forsaken in his tabernacle.	26 all the hidden darknesses are waiting to carry him off. A fire unlit by human hand devours him, andconsumes what is left in his tent.
27 The heavens will reveal his sinfulness, and the earth will rise up against him.	27 The heavens lay bare his iniquity, and the earth rises up against him.
28 The offspring of his house will be exposed; he will be pulled down in the day of God’s wrath.	28 The income of his house pours away, like the torrents, on the day of retribution.
29 This is the portion of a wicked man from God, and the inheritance of his words from the Lord.	29 Such is the fate God reserves for the wicked, the inheritance he assigns to the accursed!