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Job Finishes His Defence

29Job again took up his discourse and said:
² ‘O that I were as in the months of old,
   as in the days when God watched over me;
³ when his lamp shone over my head,
   and by his light I walked through darkness;
⁴ when I was in my prime,
   when the friendship of God was upon my tent;
⁵ when the Almighty^* was still with me,
   when my children were around me;
⁶ when my steps were washed with milk,
   and the rock poured out for me streams of oil!
⁷ When I went out to the gate of the city,
   when I took my seat in the square,
⁸ the young men saw me and withdrew,
   and the aged rose up and stood;
⁹ the nobles refrained from talking,
   and laid their hands on their mouths;
¹⁰ the voices of princes were hushed,
   and their tongues stuck to the roof of their mouths.
¹¹ When the ear heard, it commended me,
   and when the eye saw, it approved;
¹² because I delivered the poor who cried,
   and the orphan who had no helper.
¹³ The blessing of the wretched came upon me,
   and I caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy.
¹⁴ I put on righteousness, and it clothed me;
   my justice was like a robe and a turban.
¹⁵ I was eyes to the blind,
   and feet to the lame.
¹⁶ I was a father to the needy,
   and I championed the cause of the stranger.
¹⁷ I broke the fangs of the unrighteous,
   and made them drop their prey from their teeth.
¹⁸ Then I thought, “I shall die in my nest,
   and I shall multiply my days like the phoenix;^*
19 my roots spread out to the waters,
   with the dew all night on my branches;
²⁰ my glory was fresh with me,
   and my bow ever new in my hand.”

²¹ ‘They listened to me, and waited,
   and kept silence for my counsel.
²² After I spoke they did not speak again,
   and my word dropped upon them like dew.^*
23 They waited for me as for the rain;
   they opened their mouths as for the spring rain.
²⁴ I smiled on them when they had no confidence;
   and the light of my countenance they did not extinguish.^*
25 I chose their way, and sat as chief,
   and I lived like a king among his troops,
   like one who comforts mourners.

30‘But now they make sport of me,
   those who are younger than I,
whose fathers I would have disdained
   to set with the dogs of my flock.
² What could I gain from the strength of their hands?
   All their vigour is gone.
³ Through want and hard hunger
   they gnaw the dry and desolate ground,
⁴ they pick mallow and the leaves of bushes,
   and to warm themselves the roots of broom.
⁵ They are driven out from society;
   people shout after them as after a thief.
⁶ In the gullies of wadis they must live,
   in holes in the ground, and in the rocks.
⁷ Among the bushes they bray;
   under the nettles they huddle together.
⁸ A senseless, disreputable brood,
   they have been whipped out of the land.

⁹ ‘And now they mock me in song;
   I am a byword to them.
¹⁰ They abhor me, they keep aloof from me;
   they do not hesitate to spit at the sight of me.
¹¹ Because God has loosed my bowstring and humbled me,
   they have cast off restraint in my presence.
¹² On my right hand the rabble rise up;
   they send me sprawling,
   and build roads for my ruin.
¹³ They break up my path,
   they promote my calamity;
   no one restrains^* them.
¹⁴ As through a wide breach they come;
   amid the crash they roll on.
¹⁵ Terrors are turned upon me;
   my honour is pursued as by the wind,
   and my prosperity has passed away like a cloud.

¹⁶ ‘And now my soul is poured out within me;
   days of affliction have taken hold of me.
¹⁷ The night racks my bones,
   and the pain that gnaws me takes no rest.
¹⁸ With violence he seizes my garment;^*
   he grasps me by^* the collar of my tunic.
¹⁹ He has cast me into the mire,
   and I have become like dust and ashes.
²⁰ I cry to you and you do not answer me;
   I stand, and you merely look at me.
²¹ You have turned cruel to me;
   with the might of your hand you persecute me.
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.
²³ I know that you will bring me to death,
   and to the house appointed for all living.

²⁴ ‘Surely one does not turn against the needy,^*
   when in disaster they cry for help.^*
25 Did I not weep for those whose day was hard?
   Was not my soul grieved for the poor?
²⁶ But when I looked for good, evil came;
   and when I waited for light, darkness came.
²⁷ My inward parts are in turmoil, and are never still;
   days of affliction come to meet me.
²⁸ I go about in sunless gloom;
   I stand up in the assembly and cry for help.
²⁹ I am a brother of jackals,
   and a companion of ostriches.
³⁰ My skin turns black and falls from me,
   and my bones burn with heat.
³¹ My lyre is turned to mourning,
   and my pipe to the voice of those who weep.