Chapter 20

  Then answered Zophar the Naamathite, and said,  

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  Therefore do my thoughts cause me to answer, and for [this] I make haste.  

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  I have heard the check of my reproach, and the spirit of my understanding causeth me to answer.  

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  Knowest thou [not] this of old, since man was placed upon earth,  

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  That the triumphing of the wicked [is] short, and the joy of the hypocrite [but] for a moment?  

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  Though his excellency mount up to the heavens, and his head reach unto the clouds;  

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  [Yet] he shall perish for ever like his own dung: they which have seen him shall say, Where [is] he?  

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  He shall fly away as a dream, and shall not be found: yea, he shall be chased away as a vision of the night.  

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  The eye also [which] saw him shall [see him] no more; neither shall his place any more behold him.  

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  His children shall seek to please the poor, and his hands shall restore their goods.  

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  His bones are full [of the sin] of his youth, which shall lie down with him in the dust.  

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  Though wickedness be sweet in his mouth, [though] he hide it under his tongue;  

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  [Though] he spare it, and forsake it not; but keep it still within his mouth:  

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  [Yet] his meat in his bowels is turned, [it is] the gall of asps within him.  

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  He hath swallowed down riches, and he shall vomit them up again: God shall cast them out of his belly.  

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  He shall suck the poison of asps: the viper's tongue shall slay him.  

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  He shall not see the rivers, the floods, the brooks of honey and butter.  

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  That which he laboured for shall he restore, and shall not swallow [it] down: according to [his] substance [shall] the restitution [be], and he shall not rejoice [therein].  

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  Because he hath oppressed [and] hath forsaken the poor; [because] he hath violently taken away an house which he builded not;  

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  Surely he shall not feel quietness in his belly, he shall not save of that which he desired.  

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  There shall none of his meat be left; therefore shall no man look for his goods.  

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  In the fulness of his sufficiency he shall be in straits: every hand of the wicked shall come upon him.  

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  [When] he is about to fill his belly, [God] shall cast the fury of his wrath upon him, and shall rain [it] upon him while he is eating.  

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  He shall flee from the iron weapon, [and] the bow of steel shall strike him through.  

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  It is drawn, and cometh out of the body; yea, the glittering sword cometh out of his gall: terrors [are] upon him.  

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  All darkness [shall be] hid in his secret places: a fire not blown shall consume him; it shall go ill with him that is left in his tabernacle.  

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  The heaven shall reveal his iniquity; and the earth shall rise up against him.  

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  The increase of his house shall depart, [and his goods] shall flow away in the day of his wrath.  

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  This [is] the portion of a wicked man from God, and the heritage appointed unto him by God.  

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