3
1 After
this Job opened
his mouth, and
cursed the day
of his birth.
2 Job answered:
3 “Let the
day perish in
which I was
born,
the night
which said, ‘There
is a
boy conceived.’
4 Let
that day be
darkness.
Don’t let God from
above seek for
it,
neither let the
light shine on
it.
5 Let
darkness and the
shadow of death
claim it for
their own.
Let a cloud
dwell on it.
Let all that makes
the day black
terrify it.
6 As
for that night, let
thick darkness seize on
it.
Let it not
rejoice among the
days of the
year.
Let it not come
into the number
of the months.
7 Behold,
let that night
be barren.
Let no joyful
voice come therein.
8 Let them
curse it who curse
the day,
who are ready to
rouse up leviathan.
9 Let
the stars of its
twilight be dark.
Let it look
for light, but
have none,
neither let it
see the eyelids
of the morning,
10 because
it didn’t shut up
the doors of
my mother’s womb,
nor did it
hide trouble from
my eyes.
11 “Why didn’t
I die from
the womb?
Why didn’t I give
up the spirit when
my mother bore me?
12 Why
did the knees
receive me?
Or why the
breast, that I
should nurse?
13 For
now I should
have lain down
and been quiet.
I should have
slept, then I would
have been at
rest,
14 with
kings and
counselors of
the earth,
who built up
waste places for
themselves;
15 or
with princes who
had gold,
who filled their
houses with silver;
16 or
as a hidden
untimely birth I
had not been,
as infants who
never saw light.
17 There
the wicked cease
from troubling.
There the weary
are at rest.
18 There
the prisoners are
at ease together.
They don’t hear
the voice of
the taskmaster.
19 The
small and the
great are there.
The servant is
free from
his master.
20 “Why
is light given to
him who is
in misery,
life to the
bitter in soul,
21 who long
for death, but
it doesn’t come;
and dig for
it more than for
hidden treasures,
22 who
rejoice exceedingly,
and are glad,
when they can find
the grave?
23 Why is light
given to a man
whose way is
hidden,
whom God has
hedged in?
24 For
my sighing comes
before I eat.
My groanings are
poured out like
water.
25 For
the thing which
I fear comes on me,
that which I am
afraid of comes to
me.
26 I am
not at ease,
neither am I quiet,
neither do I have
rest;
but trouble comes.”