Job 3

Job Deplores His Birth

3After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. ²And Job ¹spoke, and said:

³“May ^athe day perish on which I was born,

And the night in which it was said,

‘A male child is conceived.’

⁴May that day be darkness;

May God above not seek it,

Nor the light shine upon it.

⁵May darkness and ^bthe shadow of death claim it;

May a cloud settle on it;

May the blackness of the day terrify it.

⁶As for that night, may darkness seize it;

May it not ²rejoice among the days of the year,

May it not come into the number of the months.

⁷Oh, may that night be barren!

May no joyful shout come into it!

⁸May those curse it who curse the day,

Those ^cwho are ready to arouse Leviathan.

⁹May the stars of its morning be dark;

May it look for light, but have none,

And not see the ³dawning of the day;

¹⁰Because it did not shut up the doors of my mother’s womb,

Nor hide sorrow from my eyes.

¹¹“Why ^ddid I not die at birth?

Why did I not ⁴perish when I came from the womb?

^12eWhy did the knees receive me?

Or why the breasts, that I should nurse?

¹³For now I would have lain still and been quiet,

I would have been asleep;

Then I would have been at rest

¹⁴With kings and counselors of the earth,

Who ^fbuilt ruins for themselves,

¹⁵Or with princes who had gold,

Who filled their houses with silver;

¹⁶Or why was I not hidden ^glike a stillborn child,

Like infants who never saw light?

¹⁷There the wicked cease from troubling,

And there the ⁵weary are at ^hrest.

¹⁸There the prisoners ⁶rest together;

ⁱThey do not hear the voice of the oppressor.

¹⁹The small and great are there,

And the servant is free from his master.

²⁰“Why ^jis light given to him who is in misery,

And life to the ^kbitter of soul,

²¹Who ^llong ⁷for death, but it does not come,

And search for it more than ^mhidden treasures;

²²Who rejoice exceedingly,

And are glad when they can find the ⁿgrave?

²³Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden,

^oAnd whom God has hedged in?

²⁴For my sighing comes before ⁸I eat,

And my groanings pour out like water.

²⁵For the thing I greatly ^pfeared has come upon me,

And what I dreaded has happened to me.

²⁶I am not at ease, nor am I quiet;

I have no rest, for trouble comes.”