3RD CHAPTER

Job Speaks:

Job Curses the Day He Was Born

1 After all this, Job ⸤finally⸥ opened his mouth and cursed the day he was born. 2 Job said, 

3  “Scratch out the day I was born 

and the night that said, ‘A boy has been conceived!’ 

4  “That day— 

let it be pitch-black. 

Let God above not ⸤even⸥ care about it. 

Let no light shine on it. 

5  Let the darkness and long shadows claim it as their own. 

Let a dark cloud hang over it. 

Let the gloom terrify it. 

6  “That night— 

let the blackness take it away. 

Let it not be included in the days of the year 

or be numbered among the months. 

7  Let that night be empty. 

Let no joyful singing be heard in it. 

8  Let those who curse the daya

(those who know how to wake up Leviathan) 

curse that night. 

9  Let its stars turn dark before dawn. 

Let it hope for light and receive none. 

Let it not see the first light of dawn 

10  because it did not shut the doors of the womb ⸤from which I came⸥ 

or hide my eyes from trouble. 

Why Did I Survive at Birth?

11  “Why didn’t I die as soon as I was born 

and breathe my last breath when I came out of the womb? 

12  Why did knees welcome me? 

Why did breasts let me nurse? 

13  Instead of being alive, 

I would now be quietly lying down. 

I would now be sleeping peacefully. 

14  I would be with the kings and the counselors of the world 

who built for themselves ⸤what are now⸥ ruins. 

15  I would be with princes 

who had gold, 

who filled their homes with silver. 

16  I would be buried like a stillborn baby. 

I would not exist. 

I would be like infants who never saw the light. 

17  There the wicked stop their raging. 

There the weary are able to rest. 

18  There the captives have no troubles at all. 

There they do not hear the shouting of the slave driver. 

19  There ⸤you find⸥ both the unimportant and important people. 

There the slave is free from his master. 

Why Do I Go on Living?

20  “Why give light to one in misery 

and life to those who find it so bitter, 

21  to those who long for death but it never comes— 

though they dig for it more than for buried treasure? 

22  They are ecstatic, 

delighted to find the grave. 

23  Why give light to those whose paths have been hidden, 

to those whom God has fenced in? 

24  “When my food is in front of me, I sigh. 

I pour out my groaning like water. 

25  What I fear most overtakes me. 

What I dread happens to me. 

26  I have no peace! 

I have no quiet! 

I have no rest! 

And trouble keeps coming!”