rom the face of the sword, for the sword is the
revenger of iniquities: and know ye that there is a judgment.

Job Chapter 20

Sophar declares the shortness of the prosperity of the wicked: and their
sudden downfall.

20:1. Then Sophar the Naamathite answered, and said:

20:2. Therefore various thoughts succeed one another in me, and my mind
is hurried away to different things.

20:3. The doctrine with which thou reprovest me, I will hear, and the
spirit of my understanding shall answer for me.

20:4. This I know from the beginning, since man was placed upon the
earth,

20:5. That the praise of the wicked is short, and the joy of the
hypocrite but for a moment.

20:6. If his pride mount up even to heaven, and his head touch the
clouds:

20:7. In the end he shall be destroyed like a dunghill, and they that
had seen him, shall say: Where is he?

20:8. As a dream that fleeth away he shall not be found, he shall pass
as a vision of the night:

20:9. The eyes that had seen him, shall see him no more, neither shall
his place any more behold him.

20:10. His children shall be oppressed with want, and his hands shall
render to him his sorrow.

20:11. His bones shall be filled with the vices of his youth, and they
shall sleep with him in the dust.

20:12. For when evil shall be sweet in his mouth, he will hide it under
his tongue.

20:13. He will spare it, and not leave it, and will hide it in his
throat.

20:14. His bread in his belly shall be turned into the gall of asps
within him,

20:15. The riches which he hath swallowed, he shall vomit up, and God
shall draw them out of his belly.

20:16. He shall suck the head of asps, and the viper's tongue shall kill
him.

20:17. Let him not see the streams of the river, the brooks of honey and
of butter.

20:18. 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.

According to the multitude of his devices... That is, his stratagems to
gratify his passions and to oppress and destroy the poor.

20:19. Because he broke in and stripped the poor: he hath violently
taken away a house which he did not build.

20:20. And yet his belly was not filled: and when he hath the things he
coveted, he shall not be able to possess them.

20:21. There was nothing left of his meat, and therefore nothing shall
continue of his goods:

20:22. When he shall be filled, he shall be strai