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Job 20
Job
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Chapter 20
The course of justice admits of no exception
1
Zophar of Naamath spoke next. He said:
2
To this my thoughts are eager to reply: no wonder if I am possessed by impatience.
3
I found these admonitions little to my taste, but my spirit whispers to me how to answer them.
4
Do you not know, that since time began and man was set on the earth,
5
the triumph of the wicked has always been brief ,and the sinner’s gladness has never lasted long?
6
Towering to the sky he may have been, with head touching the clouds;
7
but he vanishes, like a phantom, once for all, while those who saw him now ask, ‘Where is he?’
8
Like a dream that leaves no trace he takes his flight, like a vision in the night he flies away.
9
The eye that looked on him will never see him more, his house nevermore sets eyes on him.
10
His sons must recoup his victims, and his children pay back his riches.
11
With the vigour of youth his bones were filled, now it lies in the dust with him.
12
Evil was sweet to his mouth, he hid it beneath his tongue;
13
unwilling to let it go, he let it linger on his palate.
14
Such food goes bad in his belly, working inside him like the poison of a viper.
15
Now he must bring up all the wealth that he has swallowed, God makes him disgorge it.
16
He sucked ‘poison of vipers’: and the tongue of the adder kills him.
17
He will know no more of streams that run with oil, or the torrents of honey and cream.
18
Gone that glad face at the sight of his gains, those comfortable looks when business was thriving.
19
Since he once destroyed the huts of poor men, and stole other’s houses when he should have built his own,
20
since his avarice could never be satisfied, now his hoarding will not save him;
21
since there was nothing ever escaped his greed, now his prosperity will not last.
22
His abundance at its full, want seizes him, misery descends on him in all its force.
23
On him God looses all his burning wrath, hurling against his flesh a hail of arrows.
24
No use to run away from the iron armoury, for the bow of bronze will shoot him through.
25
Out through his back an arrow sticks, from his gall a shining point. An arsenal of terrors falls on him,
26
and all that is dark lies in ambush for him. A fire unlit by man devours him, and consumes what is left in his tent.
27
The heavens lay bare his iniquity, the earth takes its stand against him.
28
A flood sweeps his house away, and carries it off in the Day of Wrath.
29
Such is the fate God allots to the wicked, such his inheritance assigned by God.
Chapters of Job
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