² Zophar: My anguished thoughts force me to respond
        because I feel an urgency within myself.
³     I caught wind of your words that dishonor me,
        but I am prompted to answer based on my own spirit and understanding.
⁴     Don’t you know how it has always been?
        Since humankind was first put here on the earth,
⁵     The celebrations of the wicked have been brief,
        and the joy of the profane lasts only a moment.
⁶     Even if he were tall enough to reach into the heavens
        and his head were to reach to the clouds,
⁷     He would still perish forever, like his own excrement;
        those who once looked upon him would wonder,
        “Where has he gone?”
⁸     Like a dream, he flies off where no one can find him;
        he is chased away only to vanish into the air like a vision of the night.
⁹     The eyes that saw him before see him no more;
        his home doesn’t ever welcome him again.
¹⁰     His children beg at the door of the poor;
        his hands render his wealth back to them.
¹¹     The vigor of youth had a home, a residence in his bones,
        but it lies down in the dust with him.

¹²     Though his wrongdoing is sweet in his mouth,
        though he hides it under his tongue,
¹³     Though he holds it close and will not let it go
        (but must keep it in his mouth),
¹⁴     His food will be transformed within him
        into the bitter venom of the asp.
¹⁵     The wealth he has swallowed will be poison.
        He will vomit it up—God will cast it out.
¹⁶     It is as they say, “He sucks the venom of asps
        and is slain by the tongue of the viper.”
¹⁷     Never again will he gaze at the brook’s edge
        or see streams that flow with milk and honey—
¹⁸     The food for which he worked he vomits up or cannot swallow,
        and the gains of his trading, he can never enjoy.
¹⁹     After all, he’s an oppressor;
        he’s crushed and forsaken the poor;
        he made his home in a house he stole from another,
        a house he did not build himself.

²⁰     Because he’s never known inner peace,
        he has seized everything he’s ever craved.
²¹     Because he consumed all he could see, nothing is left;
        his prosperity cannot last.
²²     When he is fat with satisfaction,
        the belt of distress will tighten around him
        and the hands of the downtrodden will rise up against him.
²³     When he has filled up his belly,
        God will visit him with His ferocious anger;
        it will rain down on him while he is eating.
²⁴     Let him attempt to escape the iron weapon.
        Instead, a bow of bronze will send death to tear into him.
²⁵     When the arrow is drawn it comes out of his back,
        and the shining arrowhead comes out of his organ,
        bringing terror upon him.
²⁶     A great darkness waits for and stalks everything he values.
        A mysterious fire—unstoked yet burning hot—will consume him
        and devour everything and everyone left behind in his tent.
²⁷     The skies will tell on him, exposing his wrongdoing;
        the earth will rebel against him.
²⁸     All that he labored to build will be carried off,
        washed away in the day of God’s furious anger.
²⁹     This is how it will be for the wicked of humanity before God;
        this is the inheritance God bequeaths them.