[29:1] And Job again took up his discourse, and said:
[29:2] “Oh, that I were as in the months of old, as in the days when God watched over me,
[29:3] when his lamp shone upon my head, and by his light I walked through darkness,
[29:4] as I was in my prime, when the friendship of God was upon my tent,
[29:5] when the Almighty was yet with me, when my children were all around me,
[29:6] when my steps were washed with butter, and the rock poured out for me streams of oil!
[29:7] When I went out to the gate of the city, when I prepared my seat in the square,
[29:8] the young men saw me and withdrew, and the aged rose and stood;
[29:9] the princes refrained from talking and laid their hand on their mouth;
[29:10] the voice of the nobles was hushed, and their tongue stuck to the roof of their mouth.
[29:11] When the ear heard, it called me blessed, and when the eye saw, it approved,
[29:12] because I delivered the poor who cried for help, and the fatherless who had none to help him.
[29:13] The blessing of him who was about to perish came upon me, and I caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy.
[29:14] I put on righteousness, and it clothed me; my justice was like a robe and a turban.
[29:15] I was eyes to the blind and feet to the lame.
[29:16] I was a father to the needy, and I searched out the cause of him whom I did not know.
[29:17] I broke the fangs of the unrighteous and made him drop his prey from his teeth.
[29:18] Then I thought, ‘I shall die in my nest, and I shall multiply my days as the sand,
[29:19] my roots spread out to the waters, with the dew all night on my branches,
[29:20] my glory fresh with me, and my bow ever new in my hand.’
[29:21] “Men listened to me and waited and kept silence for my counsel.
[29:22] After I spoke they did not speak again, and my word dropped upon them.
[29:23] They waited for me as for the rain, and they opened their mouths as for the spring rain.
[29:24] I smiled on them when they had no confidence, and the light of my face they did not cast down.
[29:25] I chose their way and sat as chief, and I lived like a king among his troops, like one who comforts mourners.
[30:1] “But now they laugh at me, men who are younger than I, whose fathers I would have disdained to set with the dogs of my flock.
[30:2] What could I gain from the strength of their hands, men whose vigor is gone?
[30:3] Through want and hard hunger they gnaw the dry ground by night in waste and desolation;
[30:4] they pick saltwort and the leaves of bushes, and the roots of the broom tree for their food.
[30:5] They are driven out from human company; they shout after them as after a thief.
[30:6] In the gullies of the torrents they must dwell, in holes of the earth and of the rocks.
[30:7] Among the bushes they bray; under the nettles they huddle together.
[30:8] A senseless, a nameless brood, they have been whipped out of the land.
[30:9] “And now I have become their song; I am a byword to them.
[30:10] They abhor me; they keep aloof from me; they do not hesitate to spit at the sight of me.
[30:11] Because God has loosed my cord and humbled me, they have cast off restraint in my presence.
[30:12] On my right hand the rabble rise; they push away my feet; they cast up against me their ways of destruction.
[30:13] They break up my path; they promote my calamity; they need no one to help them.
[30:14] As through a wide breach they come; amid the crash they roll on.
[30:15] Terrors are turned upon me; my honor is pursued as by the wind, and my prosperity has passed away like a cloud.
[30:16] “And now my soul is poured out within me; days of affliction have taken hold of me.
[30:17] The night racks my bones, and the pain that gnaws me takes no rest.
[30:18] With great force my garment is disfigured; it binds me about like the collar of my tunic.
[30:19] God has cast me into the mire, and I have become like dust and ashes.
[30:20] I cry to you for help and you do not answer me; I stand, and you only look at me.
[30:21] You have turned cruel to me; with the might of your hand you persecute me.
[30:22] You lift me up on the wind; you make me ride on it, and you toss me about in the roar of the storm.
[30:23] For I know that you will bring me to death and to the house appointed for all living.
[30:24] “Yet does not one in a heap of ruins stretch out his hand, and in his disaster cry for help?
[30:25] Did not I weep for him whose day was hard? Was not my soul grieved for the needy?
[30:26] But when I hoped for good, evil came, and when I waited for light, darkness came.
[30:27] My inward parts are in turmoil and never still; days of affliction come to meet me.
[30:28] I go about darkened, but not by the sun; I stand up in the assembly and cry for help.
[30:29] I am a brother of jackals and a companion of ostriches.
[30:30] My skin turns black and falls from me, and my bones burn with heat.
[30:31] My lyre is turned to mourning, and my pipe to the voice of those who weep.