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20:1  Tzofar the Na‘amati replied,
20:2  “My thoughts are pressing me to answer; I feel such an urge to speak!
20:3  I have heard reproof that outrages me, but a spirit past my understanding gives me a reply.
20:4  “Don’t you know that ever since time began, ever since humans were placed on earth,
20:5  that the triumph of the wicked is always short-lived, and the joy of the ungodly is gone in a moment?
20:6  His pride may mount to the heavens, his head may touch the clouds;
20:7  but he will vanish completely, like his own dung — those who used to see him will ask, ‘Where is he?’
20:8  Like a dream he flies off and is not found again; like a vision in the night he is chased away.
20:9  The eye which once saw him will see him no more, his place will not behold him again.
20:10  His children will have to pay back the poor; his hands will restore their wealth.
20:11  His bones may be filled with [the vigor of] his youth, but it will join him lying in the dust.
20:12  “Wickedness may taste sweet in his mouth, he may savor and roll it around on his tongue,
20:13  he may linger over it and not let it go but keep it there in his mouth —
20:14  yet in his stomach his food goes bad, it works inside him like snake venom;
20:15  the wealth he swallows he vomits back up; God makes him disgorge it.
20:16  He sucks the poison of asps, the viper’s fangs will kill him.
20:17  He will not enjoy the rivers, the streams flowing with honey and cream.
20:18  He will have to give back what he toiled for; he won’t get to swallow it down — to the degree that he acquired wealth, he won’t get to enjoy it.
20:19  “For he crushed and abandoned the poor, seizing houses he did not build,
20:20  because his appetite would not let him rest, in his greed he let nothing escape;
20:21  nothing is left that he did not devour; therefore his well-being will not last.
20:22  With all needs satisfied, he will be in distress; the full force of misery will come over him.
20:23  “This is what will fill his belly! — [God] will lay on him all his burning anger and make it rain over him, into his insides.
20:24  If he flees from the weapon of iron, the bow of bronze will pierce him through —
20:25  he pulls the arrow out of his back, the shining tip comes out from his innards; terrors come upon him.
20:26  “Total darkness is laid up for his treasures, a fire fanned by no one will consume him, and calamity awaits what is left in his tent.
20:27  The heavens will reveal his guilt, and the earth will rise up against him.
20:28  The income of his household will be carried off; his goods will flow away on the day of his wrath.
20:29  This is God’s reward for the wicked, the heritage God decrees for him.”