Job’s Former Blessings

1Job also added to this, using figures of speech, and he said:

2Who will grant to me that I might be as I was in former months, according to the days when God kept watch over me?

3At that time, his lamp shined over my head, and by his light, I walked through the darkness.

4I was then just as in the days of my youth, when God was privately in my tabernacle.

5At that time, the Almighty was with me and my children surrounded me.

6Then, I washed my feet with butter, and a boulder poured out rivers of oil for me.

7When I went to the gate of the city, or to the main street, they prepared a chair for me.

8The youths saw me and hid themselves, and the elders, rising up, remained standing.

9The leaders stopped talking, and they placed a finder over their mouth.

10The commanders subdued their voice, and their tongue adhered to their throat.

11The ear that heard me, blessed me, and the eye that saw me, gave testimony for me.

12This was because I had freed the poor, who cried out, and the orphan, who had no helper.

13The blessing of him who would have been destroyed came upon me, and I consoled the heart of the widow.

14I put on justice, and I clothed myself with my judgment, like a robe and a diadem.

15I was an eye for the blind and a foot for the lame.

16I was the father of the poor; and if I lacked knowledge about any case, I investigated very diligently.

17I crushed the jaws of the impious, and I took away prey from his teeth.

18And I said, “I will die in my little nest, and like a palm tree, I will multiply my days.

19My root has been spread beside the waters, and the dew will remain with my harvest.

20My glory will always be restored, and my bow will be restored to my hand.”

21Those who heard me, expected vindication, and they listened closely in silence to my counsel.

22To my words, they dared to add nothing, and my eloquence poured over them.

23They waited for me as for rain, and they opened their mouth as for belated rains.

24If I had ever laughed at them, they would not have believed it, and the light of my face was not cast down towards the ground.

25If I wished to go to them, I sat down first, and, though I sat like a king surrounded by an army, yet I was a comforter to whose who mourned.