Chapter 29

¹And Job continued his parable and said, ²Oh that I were as in months past, as in the days when +God preserved me; ³When his lamp shone over my head, [and] by his light I walked through darkness; ⁴As I was in the days of my youth, when the secret counsel of +God was over my tent, ⁵When the Almighty was yet with me, my young men round about me; ⁶When my steps were bathed in milk, and the rock poured out beside me rivers of oil! ... ⁷When I went out to the gate by the city, when I prepared my seat on the broadway, ⁸The young men saw me, and hid themselves; and the aged arose [and] stood up; ⁹Princes refrained from talking, and laid the hand on their mouth; ¹⁰The voice of the nobles was hushed, and their tongue cleaved to their palate. ¹¹When the ear heard [me], then it blessed me, and when the eye saw [me], it gave witness to me; ¹²For I delivered the afflicted that cried, and the fatherless who had no helper. ¹³The blessing of him that was perishing came upon 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 mantle and a turban. ¹⁵I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame; ¹⁶I was a father to the needy, and the cause which I knew not I searched out; ¹⁷And I broke the jaws of the unrighteous, and plucked the spoil out of his teeth. ¹⁸And I said, I shall die in my nest, and multiply my days as the sand; ¹⁹My root shall be spread out to the waters, and the dew will lie all night on my branch; ²⁰My glory shall be fresh in me, and my bow be renewed in my hand. ²¹Unto me they listened, and waited, and kept silence for my counsel: ²²After my words they spoke not again, and my speech dropped upon them; ²³And they waited for me as for the rain, and they opened their mouth wide as for the latter rain. ²⁴[If] I laughed on them, they believed [it] not; and they troubled not the serenity of my countenance. ²⁵I chose their way, and sat as chief, and dwelt as a king in the army, as one that comforteth mourners.