Zophar's proclamation about the wicked
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And Zophar the Naamathite answers and says:
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“Therefore my thoughts cause me to answer, || And because of my sensations in me.
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I hear the discipline of my shame, || And the spirit of my understanding causes me to answer:
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Have you known this from antiquity? Since the placing of man on earth?
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That the singing of the wicked [is] short, || And the joy of the profane for a moment,
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Though his excellence goes up to the heavens, || He strikes his head against a cloud—
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He perishes as his own dung forever, || His beholders say, Where [is] he?
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He flees as a dream, and they do not find him, || And he is driven away as a vision of the night,
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The eye has not seen him, and does not add. And his place does not behold him again.
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His sons oppress the poor, || And his hands give back his wealth.
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His bones have been full of his youth, and it lies down with him on the dust.
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Though he sweetens evil in his mouth, hides it under his tongue,
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has pity on it, and does not forsake it, and keeps it back in the midst of his palate,
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his food is turned in his bowels, the bitterness of cobras [is] in his heart.
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He has swallowed wealth, and vomits it. God drives it out from his belly.
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He sucks [the] gall of cobras, the tongue of a viper slays him.
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He does not look on streams, || Flowing of brooks of honey and butter.
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He is giving back [what] he labored for, and does not consume [it]; As a bulwark [is] his exchange, and he does not exult.
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For he oppressed—he forsook the poor, || He has taken a house away violently, || And he does not build it.
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For he has not known ease in his belly. With his desirable thing he does not deliver himself.
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There is not a remnant to his food, || Therefore his good does not stay.
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In the fullness of his sufficiency he is constricted. Every perverse hand meets him.
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It comes to pass, at the filling of his belly, || He sends forth against him || The fierceness of His anger, || Indeed, He rains on him in his eating.
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He flees from an iron weapon, || A bow of bronze passes through him.
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One has drawn, || And it comes out from the body, || And a glittering weapon proceeds from his gall. Terrors [are] on him.
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All darkness is hid for his treasures, || A fire not blown consumes him, || The remnant is broken in his tent.
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The heavens reveal his iniquity, || And earth is raising itself against him.
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The increase of his house is removed, || Poured forth in a day of His anger.
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This [is] the portion of a wicked man from God. And an inheritance appointed him by God.”
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