Job 20

Then Zophar, Job’s friend from the town of Naamah, responded to Job. He said, 2 “What you have said troubles me greatly, so I want to reply to you right away. 3 You have insulted me by what you have said. But I have had a good idea about how I should respond to you. \* 4 People have known this for a long time, for as long as they have existed: 5 Wicked people are only briefly successful; people who refuse to honor God are happy only for a short time. \* 6 They may seem for a while to be very great and very powerful, 7 but they will disappear forever like refuse that people throw away. People who knew them will wonder where they have gone. \* 8 They will disappear the way a dream ends abruptly when a person wakes up. They will no longer exist. Yes, they will vanish just like the dreams that people have at night. 9 Those who once saw those wicked people will never see them again. Those wicked people will no longer live where they once lived. \* 10 They will have to return the valuable things that they stole from poor people. If they die before they can do that, their children will have to do it. 11 Wicked people will die before they grow old and others will bury them in the ground. \* 12 For wicked people, doing wrong things is like having sweet food in their mouths that they want to continue tasting. 13 They do not want to stop doing wrong things, as if those things were delicious food that they enjoyed eating. 14 {But they will regret doing those wrong things.} They will feel like people who eat what they should not eat and get a badly upset stomach that feels as if it is full of poison. \* 15 Wicked people try to get as much money as they can but they do not keep it, just as people who eat too much throw up the food that they ate. God makes sure that they lose their wealth. 16 A person who does evil deeds will die as a result, as certainly as the bite of a poisonous snake kills a person. \* 17 A wicked person will not experience the abundant blessings that flow like a stream from God. 18 Wicked people will have to give back the things that they acquired dishonestly. They will not be able to continue using those things. They will not have the opportunity to enjoy the things they got by doing business, 19 because they oppressed poor people and refused to help them, and they took other people’s houses by cheating them. \* 20 No matter how much they got, they still remained greedy, and as a result, they lost the things that they enjoyed having. 21 When they finish eating their food, there is never anything left over, because they greedily eat it all. That is why they do not remain wealthy. 22 While they are still very wealthy, they will suddenly experience trouble. Many people will be hostile to them and hurt them. \* 23 Even as wicked people are enjoying luxuries, God will show that he is very angry with them. He will punish them with great suffering, even as they are indulging themselves. 24 Even as they are trying to escape from smaller punishments, they will experience greater punishments. 25 It will be as if God had shot an arrow through a wicked person’s body and he had to pull it out of his back. But the shiny point of the arrow would have cut a gash in his liver, and he would know that he was going to die. \* 26 God has decided that he will destroy the valuable possessions that wicked people have. It will be as if a fire that God starts will burn them up. Yes, God will destroy every last thing that they have in their homes. 27 The sins that those wicked people have committed will become apparent. If the sky could speak, it would tell all the wrong things it saw them do. If the earth could speak, it would also be a witness against them. \* 28 On the day when God punishes people, he will take away all the possessions of wicked people. It will be as if a flood had washed them away. 29 That is what God will do to wicked people. That is what God has decreed will happen to them.” \*