1. Then Zophar the Naamathite answered and said,
2. “Therefore my disquieting thoughts bring me back for the sake of my inward excitement.
3. I hear discipline that insults me, and a spirit beyond my understanding answers me.
4. “Did you know this from of old, since the setting of the human being on earth,
5. that the rejoicing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the godless lasts only a moment?
6. Even though his stature mounts up to the heaven, and his head reaches to the clouds,
7. he will perish forever like his dung; those who have seen him will say, ‘Where is he?’
8. He will fly away like a dream, and they will not find him, and he will be chased away like a vision of the night.
9. The eye that saw him will not see him again, and his place will no longer behold him.
10. His children will seek favors from the poor, and his hands will return his wealth.
11. His bones were full of his vigor, but it will lie down with him on the dust.
12. “Though wickedness tastes sweet in his mouth, and he hides it under his tongue,
13. though he spares it and does not let it go and holds it back in the midst of his palate,
14. in his bowels his food is turned, the venom of horned vipers is within him.
15. He swallows riches, but he vomits them up; God drives them out from his stomach.