1<\/sup>Then Sophar the Naamathite answered, and said:<\/span> <\/p>\n 2<\/sup>Therefore various thoughts succeed one another in me, and my mind is hurried away to different things.<\/span> <\/p>\n 3<\/sup>The doctrine with which thou reprovest me, I will hear, and the spirit of my understanding shall answer for me.<\/span> <\/p>\n 4<\/sup>This I know from the beginning, since man was placed upon the earth,<\/span> <\/p>\n 5<\/sup>that the praise of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment.<\/span> <\/p>\n 6<\/sup>If his pride mount up even to heaven, and his head touch the clouds:<\/span> <\/p>\n 7<\/sup>In the end he shall be destroyed like a dunghill, and they that has seen him shall say: Where is he?<\/span> <\/p>\n 8<\/sup>As a dream that fleeth away he shall not be found, he shall pass as a vision of the night:<\/span> <\/p>\n 9<\/sup>The eyes that had seen him, shall see him no more, neither shall his place any more behold him.<\/span> <\/p>\n 10<\/sup>His children shall be oppressed with want, and his hands shall render him his sorrow.<\/span> <\/p>\n 11<\/sup>His bones shall be filled with the vices of his youth, and they shall sleep with him in the dust.<\/span> <\/p>\n 12<\/sup>For when evil shall be sweet in his mouth, he will hide it under his tongue.<\/span> <\/p>\n 13<\/sup>He will spare it, and not leave it, and will hide it in his throat.<\/span> <\/p>\n 14<\/sup>His bread in his belly shall be turned into the gall of asps within him.<\/span> <\/p>\n 15<\/sup>The riches which he hath swallowed; he shall vomit up, and God shall draw them out of his belly.<\/span> <\/p>\n 16<\/sup>He shall suck the head of asps, and the viper's tongue shall kill him.<\/span> <\/p>\n 17<\/sup>(Let him not see the streams of the river, the brooks of honey and of butter.)<\/span> <\/p>\n 18<\/sup>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.<\/span> <\/p>\n 19<\/sup>Because he broke in and stripped the poor: he hath violently taken away a house which he did not build.<\/span> <\/p>\n 20<\/sup>And yet his belly was not filled: and when he hath the things he coveted, he shall not be able to possess them.<\/span> <\/p>\n 21<\/sup>There was nothing left of his meat, and therefore nothing shall continue of his goods:<\/span> <\/p>\n 22<\/sup>When he shall be filled, he shall be straitened, he shall burn, and every sorrow shall fall upon him.<\/span> <\/p>\n 23<\/sup>May his belly be filled, that God may send forth the wrath of his indignation upon him, and rain down his war upon him.<\/span> <\/p>\n 24<\/sup>He shall flee from weapons of iron, and shall fall upon a bow of brass.<\/span> <\/p>\n 25<\/sup>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.<\/span> <\/p>\n 26<\/sup>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.<\/span> <\/p>\n 27<\/sup>The heavens shall reveal his iniquity, and the earth shall rise up against him.<\/span> <\/p>\n 28<\/sup>The offspring of his house shall be exposed, he shall be pulled down in the day of God's wrath.<\/span> <\/p>\n 29<\/sup>This is the portion of a wicked man from God, and the inheritance of his doings from the Lord.<\/span> <\/p>\n