Chapter 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.