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