1. Then Zophar the Naamathite responded and said:
2. “In truth, my troubled thoughts urge me to answer because of my feelings within me.
3. I hear a rebuke that dishonors me and my understanding inspires me to reply.
4. Do you not know that it has been from old, since mankind was put on earth,
5. that the triumph of the wicked is short and the joy of the godless is but for a moment?
6. Though his pride reaches to the heavens, and his head touches the clouds,
7. he perishes forever like his own dung. Those who have seen him will say, ‘Where is he?’
8. Like a dream, he flies away and they cannot find him; like a vision of the night, he is chased away.
9. The eye that saw him will not see him again; his place will look on him no more.
10. His children must recompense the poor; his own hands must give back his wealth.