Sophar declares the shortness of the prosperity of the wicked: and
their sudden downfall.
20:1. Then Sophar the Naamathite answered, and said:
20:2. Therefore various thoughts succeed one another in me, and my mind
is hurried away to different things.
20:3. The doctrine with which thou reprovest me, I will hear, and the
spirit of my understanding shall answer for me.
20:4. This I know from the beginning, since man was placed upon the
earth,
20:5. That the praise of the wicked is short, and the joy of the
hypocrite but for a moment.
20:6. If his pride mount up even to heaven, and his head touch the
clouds:
20:7. In the end he shall be destroyed like a dunghill, and they that
had seen him, shall say: Where is he?
20:8. As a dream that fleeth away he shall not be found, he shall pass
as a vision of the night:
20:9. The eyes that had seen him, shall see him no more, neither shall
his place any more behold him.
20:10. His children shall be oppressed with want, and his hands shall
render to him his sorrow.
20:11. His bones shall be filled with the vices of his youth, and they
shall sleep with him in the dust.
20:12. For when evil shall be sweet in his mouth, he will hide it under
his tongue.
20:13. He will spare it, and not leave it, and will hide it in his
throat.
20:14. His bread in his belly shall be turned into the gall of asps
within him,
20:15. The riches which he hath swallowed, he shall vomit up, and God
shall draw them out of his belly.
20:16. He shall suck the head of asps, and the viper's tongue shall
kill him.
20:17. Let him not see the streams of the river, the brooks of honey
and of butter.
20:18. He shall be punished for all that he did, and yet shall not be
consumed: according to the multitude of his devices so also shall he
suffer.
According to the multitude of his devices. . .That is, his stratagems to
gratify his passions and to oppress and destroy the poor.
20:19. Because he broke in and stripped the poor: he hath violently
taken away a house which he did not build.
20:20. And yet his belly was not filled: and when he hath the things he
coveted, he shall not be able to possess them.
20:21. There was nothing left of his meat, and therefore nothing shall
continue of his goods:
20:22. When he shall be filled, he shall be straitened, he shall burn,
and every sorrow shall fall upon him.
20:23. May his belly be filled, that God may send forth the wrath of
his indignation upon him, and rain down his war upon him.
20:24. He shall flee from weapons of iron, and shall fall upon a bow of
brass.
20:25. The sword is drawn out, and cometh forth from its scabbard, and
glittereth in his bitterness: the terrible ones shall go and come upon
him.
20:26. All darkness is hid in his secret places: a fire that is not
kindled shall devour him, he shall be afflicted when left in his
tabernacle.
20:27. The heavens shall reveal his iniquity, and the earth shall rise
up against him.
20:28. The offspring of his house shall be exposed, he shall be pulled
down in the day of God's wrath.
20:29. This is the portion of a wicked man from God, and the
inheritance of his doings from the Lord.