Job 29

Job's Summary Defense

¹And Job again took up his discourse, 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 upon my head,

and by his light I walked through darkness,

⁴as I was in my prime,

when the friendship of God was upon my tent,

⁵when the Almighty was yet with me,

when my children were all around me,

⁶when my steps were washed with butter,

and the rock poured out for me streams of oil!

⁷When I went out to the gate of the city,

when I prepared my seat in the square,

⁸the young men saw me and withdrew,

and the aged rose 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.

¹¹When the ear heard, it called me blessed,

and when the eye saw, it approved,

¹²because I delivered the poor who cried for help,

and the fatherless who had none to help him.

¹³The blessing of him who was about to perish 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 like a robe and a turban.

¹⁵I was eyes to the blind

and feet to the lame.

¹⁶I was a father to the needy,

and I searched out the cause of him whom I did not know.

¹⁷I broke the fangs of the unrighteous

and made him drop his prey from his teeth.

¹⁸Then I thought, ‘I shall die in my nest,

and I shall multiply my days as the sand,

¹⁹my roots spread out to the waters,

with the dew all night on my branches,

²⁰my glory fresh with me,

and my bow ever new in my hand.’

²¹“Men listened to me and waited

and kept silence for my counsel.

²²After I spoke they did not speak again,

and my word dropped upon them.

²³They waited for me as for the rain,

and they opened their mouths as for the spring rain.

²⁴I smiled on them when they had no confidence,

and the light of my face they did not cast down.

²⁵I chose their way and sat as chief,

and I lived like a king among his troops,

like one who comforts mourners.