New Revised Standard NRS
The Message Bible MSG
1 Then Zophar the Naamathite answered:
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Zophar from Naamath again took his turn:
2 "Pay attention! My thoughts urge me to answer, because of the agitation within me.
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"I can't believe what I'm hearing! You've put my teeth on edge, my stomach in a knot.
3 I hear censure that insults me, and a spirit beyond my understanding answers me.
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How dare you insult my intelligence like this! Well, here's a piece of my mind!
4 Do you not know this from of old, ever since mortals were placed on earth,
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"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 that the exulting of the wicked is short, and the joy of the godless is but for a moment?
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The good times of the wicked are short-lived; godless joy is only momentary.
6 Even though they mount up high as the heavens, and their head reaches to the clouds,
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The evil might become world famous, strutting at the head of the celebrity parade,
7 they will perish forever like their own dung; those who have seen them will say, "Where are they?'
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But still end up in a pile of dung. Acquaintances look at them with disgust and say, 'What's that?'
8 They will fly away like a dream, and not be found; they will be chased away like a vision of the night.
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They fly off like a dream that can't be remembered, like a shadowy illusion that vanishes in the light.
9 The eye that saw them will see them no more, nor will their place behold them any longer.
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Though once notorious public figures, now they're nobodies, unnoticed, whether they come or go.
10 Their children will seek the favor of the poor, and their hands will give back their wealth.
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Their children will go begging on skid row, and they'll have to give back their ill-gotten gain.
11 Their bodies, once full of youth, will lie down in the dust with them.
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Right in the prime of life, and youthful and vigorous, they'll die.
12 "Though wickedness is sweet in their mouth, though they hide it under their tongues,
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"They savor evil as a delicacy, roll it around on their tongues,
13 though they are loath to let it go, and hold it in their mouths,
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Prolong the flavor, a dalliance in decadence - real gourmets of evil!
14 yet their food is turned in their stomachs; it is the venom of asps within them.
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But then they get stomach cramps, a bad case of food poisoning.
15 They swallow down riches and vomit them up again; God casts them out of their bellies.
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They gag on all that rich food; God makes them vomit it up.
16 They will suck the poison of asps; the tongue of a viper will kill them.
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They gorge on evil, make a diet of that poison - a deadly diet - and it kills them.
17 They will not look on the rivers, the streams flowing with honey and curds.
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No quiet picnics for them beside gentle streams with fresh-baked bread and cheese, and tall, cool drinks.
18 They will give back the fruit of their toil, and will not swallow it down; from the profit of their trading they will get no enjoyment.
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They spit out their food half-chewed, unable to relax and enjoy anything they've worked for.
19 For they have crushed and abandoned the poor, they have seized a house that they did not build.
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And why? Because they exploited the poor, took what never belonged to them.
20 "They knew no quiet in their bellies; in their greed they let nothing escape.
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"Such God-denying people are never content with what they have or who they are; their greed drives them relentlessly.
21 There was nothing left after they had eaten; therefore their prosperity will not endure.
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They plunder everything but they can't hold on to any of it.
22 In full sufficiency they will be in distress; all the force of misery will come upon them.
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Just when they think they have it all, disaster strikes; they're served up a plate full of misery.
23 To fill their belly to the full God will send his fierce anger into them, and rain it upon them as their food.
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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 They will flee from an iron weapon; a bronze arrow will strike them through.
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As they run for their lives from one disaster, they run smack into another.
25 It is drawn forth and comes out of their body, and the glittering point comes out of their gall; terrors come upon them.
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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 Utter darkness is laid up for their treasures; a fire fanned by no one will devour them; what is left in their tent will be consumed.
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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 The heavens will reveal their iniquity, and the earth will rise up against them.
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God will strip them of their sin-soaked clothes and hang their dirty laundry out for all to see.
28 The possessions of their house will be carried away, dragged off in the day of God's wrath.
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Life is a complete wipeout for them, nothing surviving God's wrath.
29 This is the portion of the wicked from God, the heritage decreed for them by God."
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There! That's God's blueprint for the wicked - what they have to look forward to."
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Published by permission. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.