is layd vp in my bosome. 28Why then doe you say now: Let vs persecute him, & let vs finde roote of word agaynst him? 29Flye therfore from the face of the sword, because the sword is the reuenger of iniquities: and know ye that there is iudgement.
CHAP. XX.
BVT Sophar the Naamathite answering, sayd: 2Therfore my diuerse cogitations succeed one an other, and my minde is rapt into sundrie things. The sixth conflict.3The doctrine, wherwith thou reprouest me, I wil heare, and the spirit of my vnderstanding shal answer me. 4This I know from the beginning, since man was placed vpon the earth, 5That the praise of the impious is [1] short, and the ioy of the hypocrite as it were for a moment: 6If his pride rise vp euen to the heauen, and his head touch the clouds: 7As a dunghil in the end he shal be destroyed, and they that had seen him, shal say: Where is he? 8As a dreame that flyeth away he shal not be found, he shal passe as a vision by night: 9The eie that had seen him, shal not see him, neither shal his place behold him any more. 10His children shal come to naught with pouertie, and his hands shal render him his sorow. 11His bones shal be filled with the vices of his youth, & they shal sleep with him in the dust. 12For when euil shal be sweet in his mouth, he wil hide it vnder his tongue. 13He wil spare it, & not leaue it, and wil hide it in his throte. 14His bread in his belly shal be turned into the gaule of aspes within him. 15The riches which he hath deuoured, he shal vomite out, & God shal draw them forth out of his belly. 16He shal sucke the head of aspes, and the vipers tongue shal kil him. 17(Let him not see the streames of the riuer, the torrentes of honie, & of butter.) 18He shal be punished for al things that he did, & yet not be consumed: according to the multitude of his inuentions so also shal he suffer. 19Because breaking in he hath made the poore naked: he hath violently taken a house, & built it not. 20Neither is his bellie filled: and when he shal haue the things he coueted, he can not possesse them. 21There remayned not of his meate, & therfore nothing shal continue of his goods: 22When he shal be filled, he shal be straytned, he shal burne, and al sorow shal fal vpon him. 23Would God his belly were filled, that he may send forth the wrath of his furie vpon him, and rayne his battel vpon him, 24He shal fly wepons of yron, and shal fal vpon a bowe of brasse. 25The sword plucked out, and comming forth of his scabbard, and glistening in his bitternesse: the horrible shal goe and come vpon him. 26Al darkenesse is hid in his secrets: fyre that is not kindled shal deuoure him, he shal be
- ↑ Al mans life is short & as a moment in comparison of eternitie; but it is not alwayes true that the wicked are shortly punished in respect of this life, as this disputer applieth it to proue Iob to be impious. Therfore Iob answereth in the next chap. v. 13. That ordinarily the wicked, lead their dayes (to wit their whole life) in wealth & (then) in a moment goe downe to hel. So the rest of these mens assertions are for most part true in some sense, but il applied.
