Job 29

Job 29

¹Job again took up his parable, and said,

²“Oh that I were as in the months of old,

as in the days when God watched over me;

³when his lamp shone on my head,

and by his light I walked through darkness,

⁴as I was in the ripeness of my days,

when the friendship of God was in my tent,

⁵when the Almighty was yet with me,

and my children were around me,

⁶when my steps were washed with butter,

and the rock poured out streams of oil for me,

⁷when I went forth to the city gate,

when I prepared my seat in the street.

⁸The young men saw me and hid themselves.

The aged rose up and stood.

⁹The princes refrained from talking,

and laid their hand on their mouth.

¹⁰The voice of the nobles was hushed,

and their tongue stuck to the roof of their mouth.

¹¹For when the ear heard me, then it blessed me;

and when the eye saw me, it commended me:

¹²Because I delivered the poor who cried,

and the fatherless also, who had none to help him,

¹³the blessing of him who was ready to perish came on me,

and I caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy.

¹⁴I put on righteousness, and it clothed me.

My justice was as a robe and a diadem.

¹⁵I was eyes to the blind,

and feet to the lame.

¹⁶I was a father to the needy.

The cause of him who I didn’t know, I searched out.

¹⁷I broke the jaws of the unrighteous,

and plucked the prey out of his teeth.

¹⁸Then I said, ‘I shall die in my own house,

I shall number my days as the sand.

¹⁹My root is spread out to the waters.

The dew lies all night on my branch.

²⁰My glory is fresh in me.

My bow is renewed in my hand.’

²¹“Men listened to me, waited,

and kept silence for my counsel.

²²After my words they didn’t speak again.

My speech fell on them.

²³They waited for me as for the rain.

Their mouths drank as with the spring rain.

²⁴I smiled on them when they had no confidence.

They didn’t reject the light of my face.

²⁵I chose out their way, and sat as chief.

I lived as a king in the army,

as one who comforts the mourners.