| 1 | Then Sophar the Naamathite answered, and said: |
| 2 | Therefore various thoughts succeed one another in me, and my mind is hurried away to different things. |
| 3 | The doctrine with which thou reprovest me, I will hear, and the spirit of my understanding shall answer for me. |
| 4 | This I know from the beginning, since man was placed upon the earth, |
| 5 | That the praise of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment. |
| 6 | If his pride mount up even to heaven, and his head touch the clouds: |
| 7 | In the end he shall be destroyed like a dunghill, and they that has seen him shall say: Where is he? |
| 8 | As a dream that fleeth away he shall not be found, he shall pass as a vision of the night: |
| 9 | The eyes that had seen him, shall see him no more, neither shall his place any more behold him. |
| 10 | His children shall be oppressed with want, and his hands shall render him his sorrow. |
| 11 | His bones shall be filled with the vices of his youth, and they shall sleep with him in the dust. |
| 12 | For when evil shall be sweet in his mouth, he will hide it under his tongue. |
| 13 | He will spare it, and not leave it, and will hide it in his throat. |
| 14 | His bread in his belly shall be turned into the gall of asps within him. |
| 15 | The riches which he hath swallowed; he shall vomit up, and God shall draw them out of his belly. |
| 16 | He shall suck the head of asps, and the viper's tongue shall kill him. |
| 17 | (Let him not see the streams of the river, the brooks of honey and of butter.) |
| 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. |
| 19 | Because he broke in and stripped the poor: he hath violently taken away a house which he did not build. |
| 20 | And yet his belly was not filled: and when he hath the things he coveted, he shall not be able to possess them. |
| 21 | There was nothing left of his meat, and therefore nothing shall continue of his goods: |
| 22 | When he shall be filled, he shall be straitened, he shall burn, and every sorrow shall fall upon him. |
| 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. |
| 24 | He shall flee from weapons of iron, and shall fall upon a bow of brass. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 27 | The heavens shall reveal his iniquity, and the earth shall rise up against him. |
| 28 | The offspring of his house shall be exposed, he shall be pulled down in the day of God's wrath. |
| 29 | This is the portion of a wicked man from God, and the inheritance of his doings from the Lord. |
