Job 20 · Clearspring

Zophar: Destruction Awaits the Wicked

¹Then Zophar the Naamathite answered,+ ²“Therefore my thoughts answer me, even by reason of my haste that is in me.+ ³I have heard the reproof which puts me to shame. The spirit of my understanding answers me.+ ⁴Don’t you know this from old time, since man was placed on earth,+ ⁵that the triumphing of the wicked is short, the joy of the godless but for a moment?+ ⁶Though his height mount up to the heavens, and his head reach to the clouds,+ ⁷yet he will perish forever like his own dung. Those who have seen him will say, ‘Where is he?’+ ⁸He will fly away as a dream, and will not be found. Yes, he will be chased away like a vision of the night.+ ⁹The eye which saw him will see him no more, neither will his place see him any more.+ ¹⁰His children will seek the favour of the poor. His hands will give back his wealth.+ ¹¹His bones are full of his youth, but youth will lie down with him in the dust.+ ¹²“Though wickedness is sweet in his mouth, though he hide it under his tongue,+ ¹³though he spare it, and will not let it go, but keep it still within his mouth,+ ¹⁴yet his food in his bowels is turned. It is cobra venom within him.+ ¹⁵He has swallowed down riches, and he will vomit them up again. God will cast them out of his belly.+ ¹⁶He will suck cobra venom. The viper’s tongue will kill him.+ ¹⁷He will not look at the rivers, the flowing streams of honey and butter.+ ¹⁸He will restore that for which he laboured, and will not swallow it down. He will not rejoice according to the substance that he has gotten.+ ¹⁹For he has oppressed and forsaken the poor. He has violently taken away a house, and he will not build it up.+ ²⁰“Because he knew no quietness within him, he will not save anything of that in which he delights.+ ²¹There was nothing left that he didn’t devour, therefore his prosperity will not endure.+ ²²In the fullness of his sufficiency, distress will overtake him. The hand of everyone who is in misery will come on him.+ ²³When he is about to fill his belly, God will cast the fierceness of his wrath on him. It will rain on him while he is eating.+ ²⁴He will flee from the iron weapon. The bronze arrow will strike him through.+ ²⁵He draws it out, and it comes out of his body. Yes, the glittering point comes out of his liver. Terrors are on him.+ ²⁶All darkness is laid up for his treasures. An unfanned fire will devour him. It will consume that which is left in his tent.+ ²⁷The heavens will reveal his iniquity. The earth will rise up against him.+ ²⁸The increase of his house will depart. They will rush away in the day of his wrath.+ ²⁹This is the portion of a wicked man from God, the heritage appointed to him by God.”+

Zophar: Destruction Awaits the Wicked

Study Job 20