CLV(i)
1 Then Zophar the Naamathite answered and said:
2 Therefore my disquieting thoughts are causing me to reply, On account of my hurried sense within me.
3 I am hearing admonition meant to confound me, And the spirit of my understanding makes me respond.
4 Don't you know this, from long ago, From when humanity was placed on the earth,
5 That the jubilation of the wicked is brief, And the rejoicing of the polluted lasts but a moment?
6 Even if his dignity ascends to the heavens, And his head touches the thick clouds,
7 He shall perish permanently like his own ordure; Those having seen him shall say, Where is he?
8 He shall fly away like a dream, and they shall not find him, For he shall be bolted away like a vision of the night.
9 The eye that glanced at him shall not do so anymore, Neither shall his place regard him further.
10 His sons must benefact the poor, And his hands must restore the wealth of his virility.
11 His bones were filled by his adolescence, Yet that gain shall lie with him in the soil.
12 Even if evil is sweet in his mouth, And he suppresses it under his tongue,
13 Though he spares it and does not forsake it, And he holds fast to it in the midst of his palate,
14 Yet his bread shall turn sour in his bowels, The bile of cobras within him.
15 The estate he has swallowed down, he shall vomit it up; El shall evict it from his belly.
16 He shall suck the poison of cobras; The tongue of a puff-adder shall kill him.
17 He shall not see the rillets, The streams of watercourses flowing with honey and clotted cream.
18 He must return the fruit of his labor and not swallow it down, And in the estate of his commerce, he has no enjoyment.
19 For he has maltreated, he has forsaken the poor; He has pillaged a house which he did not build.
20 For he has not known ease from the craving of his belly; From his coveting, he has not tried to escape.
21 There was nothing surviving for him as food. Therefore his good state cannot hope to last.
22 When his affluence is full there shall be distress for him; Every means of misery shall come upon him.
23 It shall come to be, in order to fill his belly, That He shall send against him the heat of His anger And shall rain it upon him as his nourishment.
24 He shall have to run away from a weapon of iron; An arrow of a copper bow shall pass through him.
25 It will be pulled out and be brought forth from his body, And a flashing blade from his bile; Dread shall come over him.
26 Total darkness lies buried for his secluded riches; A fire that was not blown shall devour him; It shall imperil anything surviving in his tent.
27 The heavens shall expose his depravity, And the earth will rise against him.
28 The deluge shall deport his house, Spilling over in the day of His anger.
29 This is the portion from Elohim for the wicked person, And the allotment assigned him by El.