Then Zophar the Naamathite answered and said:

    “Therefore my thoughts answer me,
        because of my haste within me.
    I hear censure that insults me,
        and out of my understanding a spirit answers me.
    Do you not know this from of old,
        since man was placed on earth,
    that the exulting of the wicked is short,
        and the joy of the godless but for a moment?
    Though his height mount up to the heavens,
        and his head reach to the clouds,
    he will perish forever like his own dung;
        those who have seen him will say, ‘Where is he?’
    He will fly away like a dream and not be found;
        he will be chased away like a vision of the night.
    The eye that saw him will see him no more,
        nor will his place any more behold him.
    His children will seek the favor of the poor,
        and his hands will give back his wealth.
    His bones are full of his youthful vigor,
        but it will lie down with him in the dust.
    
    
    “Though evil is sweet in his mouth,
        though he hides it under his tongue,
    though he is loath to let it go
        and holds it in his mouth,
    yet his food is turned in his stomach;
        it is the venom of cobras within him.
    He swallows down riches and vomits them up again;
        God casts them out of his belly.
    He will suck the poison of cobras;
        the tongue of a viper will kill him.
    He will not look upon the rivers,
        the streams flowing with honey and curds.
    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.
    For he has crushed and abandoned the poor;
        he has seized a house that he did not build.
    
    
    “Because he knew no contentment in his belly,
        he will not let anything in which he delights escape him.
    There was nothing left after he had eaten;
        therefore his prosperity will not endure.
    In the fullness of his sufficiency he will be in distress;
        the hand of everyone in misery will come against him.
    To fill his belly to the full,
        God will send his burning anger against him
        and rain it upon him into his body.
    He will flee from an iron weapon;
        a bronze arrow will strike him through.
    It is drawn forth and comes out of his body;
        the glittering point comes out of his gallbladder;
        terrors come upon him.
    Utter darkness is laid up for his treasures;
        a fire not fanned will devour him;
        what is left in his tent will be consumed.
    The heavens will reveal his iniquity,
        and the earth will rise up against him.
    The possessions of his house will be carried away,
        dragged off in the day of God’s wrath.
    This is the wicked man’s portion from God,
        the heritage decreed for him by God.”
    
    
      Then Job answered and said:

    “Keep listening to my words,
        and let this be your comfort.
    Bear with me, and I will speak,
        and after I have spoken, mock on.
    As for me, is my complaint against man?
        Why should I not be impatient?
    Look at me and be appalled,
        and lay your hand over your mouth.
    When I remember, I am dismayed,
        and shuddering seizes my flesh.
    Why do the wicked live,
        reach old age, and grow mighty in power?
    Their offspring are established in their presence,
        and their descendants before their eyes.
    Their houses are safe from fear,
        and no rod of God is upon them.
    Their bull breeds without fail;
        their cow calves and does not miscarry.
    They send out their little boys like a flock,
        and their children dance.
    They sing to the tambourine and the lyre
        and rejoice to the sound of the pipe.
    They spend their days in prosperity,
        and in peace they go down to Sheol.
    They say to God, ‘Depart from us!
        We do not desire the knowledge of your ways.
    What is the Almighty, that we should serve him?
        And what profit do we get if we pray to him?’
    Behold, is not their prosperity in their hand?
        The counsel of the wicked is far from me.
    
    
    “How often is it that the lamp of the wicked is put out?
        That their calamity comes upon them?
        That God distributes pains in his anger?
    That they are like straw before the wind,
        and like chaff that the storm carries away?
    You say, ‘God stores up their iniquity for their children.’
        Let him pay it out to them, that they may know it.
    Let their own eyes see their destruction,
        and let them drink of the wrath of the Almighty.
    For what do they care for their houses after them,
        when the number of their months is cut off?
    Will any teach God knowledge,
        seeing that he judges those who are on high?
    One dies in his full vigor,
        being wholly at ease and secure,
    his pails full of milk
        and the marrow of his bones moist.
    Another dies in bitterness of soul,
        never having tasted of prosperity.
    They lie down alike in the dust,
        and the worms cover them.
    
    
    “Behold, I know your thoughts
        and your schemes to wrong me.
    For you say, ‘Where is the house of the prince?
        Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?’
    Have you not asked those who travel the roads,
        and do you not accept their testimony
    that the evil man is spared in the day of calamity,
        that he is rescued in the day of wrath?
    Who declares his way to his face,
        and who repays him for what he has done?
    When he is carried to the grave,
        watch is kept over his tomb.
    The clods of the valley are sweet to him;
        all mankind follows after him,
        and those who go before him are innumerable.
    How then will you comfort me with empty nothings?
        There is nothing left of your answers but falsehood.” (ESV)

Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me. I went up because of a revelation and set before them (though privately before those who seemed influential) the gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles, in order to make sure I was not running or had not run in vain. But even Titus, who was with me, was not forced to be circumcised, though he was a Greek. Yet because of false brothers secretly brought in—who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might bring us into slavery—to them we did not yield in submission even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you. And from those who seemed to be influential (what they were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality)—those, I say, who seemed influential added nothing to me. On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised (for he who worked through Peter for his apostolic ministry to the circumcised worked also through me for mine to the Gentiles), and when James and Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and me, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. Only, they asked us to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do.

  But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?”

  We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.

  But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. (ESV)