Friday, June 21
“People listened to me expectantly,
waiting in silence for my counsel.
22
After I had spoken, they spoke no more;
my words fell gently on their ears.
23
They waited for me as for showers
and drank in my words as the spring rain.
24
When I smiled at them, they scarcely believed it;
the light of my face was precious to them.[https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=job+29%3a21%e2%80%9430%3a15&version=niv#fen-niv-13557a]
25
I chose the way for them and sat as their chief;
I dwelt as a king among his troops;
I was like one who comforts mourners.
30
“But now they mock me,
men younger than I,
whose fathers I would have disdained
to put with my sheep dogs.
2
Of what use was the strength of their hands to me,
since their vigor had gone from them?
3
Haggard from want and hunger,
they roamed[https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=job+29%3a21%e2%80%9430%3a15&version=niv#fen-niv-13561b] the parched land
in desolate wastelands at night.
4
In the brush they gathered salt herbs,
and their food[https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=job+29%3a21%e2%80%9430%3a15&version=niv#fen-niv-13562c] was the root of the broom bush.
5
They were banished from human society,
shouted at as if they were thieves.
6
They were forced to live in the dry stream beds,
among the rocks and in holes in the ground.
7
They brayed among the bushes
and huddled in the undergrowth.
8
A base and nameless brood,
they were driven out of the land.
9
“And now those young men mock me in song;
I have become a byword among them.
10
They detest me and keep their distance;
they do not hesitate to spit in my face.
11
Now that God has unstrung my bow and afflicted me,
they throw off restraint in my presence.
12
On my right the tribe[https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=job+29%3a21%e2%80%9430%3a15&version=niv#fen-niv-13570d] attacks;
they lay snares for my feet,
they build their siege ramps against me.
13
They break up my road;
they succeed in destroying me.
‘No one can help him,’ they say.
14
They advance as through a gaping breach;
amid the ruins they come rolling in.
15
Terrors overwhelm me;
my dignity is driven away as by the wind,
my safety vanishes like a cloud.
