Parallel Bible results for "job 20"

Job 20

English Standard Version ESV

1 Then Zophar the Naamathite answered and said:

2 "Therefore my thoughts answer me, because of my haste within me.

3 I hear censure that insults me, and out of my understanding a spirit answers me.

4 Do you not know this from of old, since man was placed on earth,

5 that the exulting of the wicked is short, and the joy of the godless but for a moment?

6 Though his height mount up to the heavens, and his head reach to the clouds,

7 he will perish forever like his own dung; those who have seen him will say, 'Where is he?'

8 He will fly away like a dream and not be found; he will be chased away like a vision of the night.

9 The eye that saw him will see him no more, nor will his place any more behold him.

10 His children will seek the favor of the poor, and his hands will give back his wealth.

11 His bones are full of his youthful vigor, but it will lie down with him in the dust.

12 "Though evil is sweet in his mouth, though he hides it under his tongue,

13 though he is loath to let it go and holds it in his mouth,

14 yet his food is turned in his stomach; it is the venom of cobras within him.

15 He swallows down riches and vomits them up again; God casts them out of his belly.

16 He will suck the poison of cobras; the tongue of a viper will kill him.

17 He will not look upon the rivers, the streams flowing with honey and curds.

18 He will give back the fruit of his toil and will not swallow it down; from the profit of his trading he will get no enjoyment.

19 For he has crushed and abandoned the poor; he has seized a house that he did not build.

20 "Because he knew no contentment in his belly, he will not let anything in which he delights escape him.

21 There was nothing left after he had eaten; therefore his prosperity will not endure.

22 In the fullness of his sufficiency he will be in distress; the hand of everyone in misery will come against him.

23 To fill his belly to the full, God will send his burning anger against him and rain it upon him into his body.

24 He will flee from an iron weapon; a bronze arrow will strike him through.

25 It is drawn forth and comes out of his body; the glittering point comes out of his gallbladder; terrors come upon him.

26 Utter darkness is laid up for his treasures; a fire not fanned will devour him; what is left in his tent will be consumed.

27 The heavens will reveal his iniquity, and the earth will rise up against him.

28 The possessions of his house will be carried away, dragged off in the day of God's wrath.

29 This is the wicked man's portion from God, the heritage decreed for him by God."

The Message Bible MSG

1 Zophar from Naamath again took his turn:

2 "I can't believe what I'm hearing! You've put my teeth on edge, my stomach in a knot.

3 How dare you insult my intelligence like this! Well, here's a piece of my mind!

4 "Don't you even know the basics, how things have been since the earliest days, when Adam and Eve were first placed on earth?

5 The good times of the wicked are short-lived; godless joy is only momentary.

6 The evil might become world famous, strutting at the head of the celebrity parade,

7 But still end up in a pile of dung. Acquaintances look at them with disgust and say, 'What's that?'

8 They fly off like a dream that can't be remembered, like a shadowy illusion that vanishes in the light.

9 Though once notorious public figures, now they're nobodies, unnoticed, whether they come or go.

10 Their children will go begging on skid row, and they'll have to give back their ill-gotten gain.

11 Right in the prime of life, and youthful and vigorous, they'll die.

12 "They savor evil as a delicacy, roll it around on their tongues,

13 Prolong the flavor, a dalliance in decadence - real gourmets of evil!

14 But then they get stomach cramps, a bad case of food poisoning.

15 They gag on all that rich food; God makes them vomit it up.

16 They gorge on evil, make a diet of that poison - a deadly diet - and it kills them.

17 No quiet picnics for them beside gentle streams with fresh-baked bread and cheese, and tall, cool drinks.

18 They spit out their food half-chewed, unable to relax and enjoy anything they've worked for.

19 And why? Because they exploited the poor, took what never belonged to them.

20 "Such God-denying people are never content with what they have or who they are; their greed drives them relentlessly.

21 They plunder everything but they can't hold on to any of it.

22 Just when they think they have it all, disaster strikes; they're served up a plate full of misery.

23 When they've filled their bellies with that, God gives them a taste of his anger, and they get to chew on that for a while.

24 As they run for their lives from one disaster, they run smack into another.

25 They're knocked around from pillar to post, beaten to within an inch of their lives. They're trapped in a house of horrors,

26 and see their loot disappear down a black hole. Their lives are a total loss - not a penny to their name, not so much as a bean.

27 God will strip them of their sin-soaked clothes and hang their dirty laundry out for all to see.

28 Life is a complete wipeout for them, nothing surviving God's wrath.

29 There! That's God's blueprint for the wicked - what they have to look forward to."