Chapter 29

  And Job continued his parable and said,  

  Oh that I were as in months past, as in the days when +God preserved me;  

  When his lamp shone over my head, [and] by his light I walked through darkness;  

  As I was in the days of my youth, when the secret counsel of +God was over my tent,  

  When the Almighty was yet with me, my young men round about me;  

  When my steps were bathed in milk, and the rock poured out beside me rivers of oil! ...  

  When I went out to the gate by the city, when I prepared my seat on the broadway,  

  The young men saw me, and hid themselves; and the aged arose [and] stood up;  

  Princes refrained from talking, and laid the hand on their mouth;  

  The voice of the nobles was hushed, and their tongue cleaved to their palate.  

  When the ear heard [me], then it blessed me, and when the eye saw [me], it gave witness to me;  

  For I delivered the afflicted that cried, and the fatherless who had no helper.  

  The blessing of him that was perishing came upon me, and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy.  

  I put on righteousness, and it clothed me; my justice was as a mantle and a turban.  

  I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame;  

  I was a father to the needy, and the cause which I knew not I searched out;  

  And I broke the jaws of the unrighteous, and plucked the spoil out of his teeth.  

  And I said, I shall die in my nest, and multiply my days as the sand;  

  My root shall be spread out to the waters, and the dew will lie all night on my branch;  

  My glory shall be fresh in me, and my bow be renewed in my hand.  

  Unto me they listened, and waited, and kept silence for my counsel:  

  After my words they spoke not again, and my speech dropped upon them;  

  And they waited for me as for the rain, and they opened their mouth wide as for the latter rain.  

  [If] I laughed on them, they believed [it] not; and they troubled not the serenity of my countenance.  

  I chose their way, and sat as chief, and dwelt as a king in the army, as one that comforteth mourners.