Job 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.