Job 29

¹And Job again took up his parable, and said,

²Oh that I were as in the months of old, As in the days when God watched over me;

³When his lamp shined upon 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 upon my tent;

⁵When the Almighty was yet with me, And my children were about me;

⁶When my steps were washed with butter, And the rock poured me out streams of oil!

⁷When I went forth to the gate unto the city, When I prepared my seat in the street,

⁸The young men saw me and hid themselves, And 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 cleaved to the roof of their mouth.

¹¹For when the ear heard me, then it blessed me; And when the eye saw me, it gave witness unto me:

¹²Because I delivered the poor that cried, The fatherless also, that had none to help him.

¹³The blessing of him that was ready 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 as a robe and a diadem.

¹⁵I was eyes to the blind, And feet was I to the lame.

¹⁶I was a father to the needy: And the cause of him that I knew not I searched out.

And I brake the jaws of the unrighteous, And plucked the prey out of his teeth.