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My reins are consumed within me.

²⁸If ye say: 'How we will persecute him! '

Seeing that the root of the matter is found in me;

²⁹Be ye afraid of the sword;

For wrath bringeth the punishments of the sword,

That ye may know there is a judgment.

20 Then answered Zophar the Naamathite, and said:

²Therefore do my thoughts give answer to me,

Even by reason of mine agitation that is in me.

³I have heard the reproof which putteth me to shame,

But out of my understanding my spirit answereth me.

 

⁴Knowest thou not this of old time,

Since man was placed upon earth,

⁵That the triumphing of the wicked is short,

And the joy of the godless but for a moment?

⁶Though his excellency mount up to the heavens,

And his head reach unto the clouds;

⁷Yet he shall perish for ever like his own dung;

They that have seen him shall say: 'Where is he?'

⁸He shall fly away as a dream, and shall not be found;

Yea, he shall be chased away as a vision of the night.

⁹The eye which saw him shall see him no more;

Neither shall his place any more behold him.

¹⁰His children shall appease the poor,

And his hands shall restore his wealth.

¹¹His bones are full of his youth,

But it shall lie down with him in the dust.

¹²Though wickedness be 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 the gall of asps within him.

¹⁵He hath swallowed down riches, and he shall vomit them up again;

God shall cast them out of his belly.

¹⁶He shall suck the poison of asps;

The viper's tongue shall slay him.

¹⁷He shall not look upon the rivers,

The flowing streams of honey and curd.

¹⁸That which he laboured for shall he give back, and shall not swallow it down;

According to the substance that he hath gotten, he shall not rejoice.

¹⁹For he hath oppressed and forsaken the poor;

He hath violently taken away a house, and he shall not build it up.

²⁰Because he knew no quietness within him,

In his greed he suffered nought to escape,

²¹There was nothing left that he devoured not—

Therefore his prosperity shall not endure.

²²In the fulness of his sufficiency he shall be in straits;

The hand of every one that is in misery shall come upon him.

²³It shall be for the filling of his belly;

He shall cast the fierceness of His wrath upon him,

And shall cause it to rain upon him into his flesh.

²⁴If he flee from the iron weapon,

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