Job 3

¹ After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day.

² And Job answered and said :

³ Let the day perish wherein I was born, And the night which said, There is a man-child conceived.

⁴ Let that day be darkness ; Let not God from above seek for it, Neither let the light shine upon it.

⁵ Let darkness and the shadow of death claim it for their own ; Let a cloud dwell upon it ; Let all that maketh black the day terrify it.

⁶ As for that night, let thick darkness seize upon it : Let it not rejoice among the days of the year ; Let it not come into the number of the months.

⁷ Lo, let that night be barren ; Let no joyful voice come therein.

⁸ Let them curse it that curse the day, Who are ready to rouse up leviathan.

⁹ Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark : Let it look for light, but have none ; Neither let it behold the eyelids of the morning :

¹⁰ Because it shut not up the doors of my mother’s womb, Nor hid trouble from mine eyes.

¹¹ Why died I not from the womb ? Why did I not give up the ghost when my mother bare me ?

¹² Why did the knees receive me ? Or why the breasts, that I should suck ?

¹³ For now should I have lain down and been quiet ; I should have slept ; then had I been at rest,

¹⁴ With kings and counsellors of the earth, Who built up waste places for themselves ;

¹⁵ Or with princes that had gold, Who filled their houses with silver :

¹⁶ Or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been, As infants that never saw light.

¹⁷ There the wicked cease from troubling ; And there the weary are at rest.

¹⁸ There the prisoners are at ease together ; They hear not the voice of the taskmaster.

¹⁹ The small and the great are there : And the servant is free from his master.

²⁰ Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, And life unto the bitter in soul ;

²¹ Who long for death, but it cometh not, And dig for it more than for hid 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 hid, And whom God hath hedged in ?

²⁴ For my sighing cometh before I eat, And my groanings are poured out like water.

²⁵ For the thing which I fear cometh upon me, And that which I am afraid of cometh unto me.

²⁶ I am not at ease, neither am I quiet, neither have I rest ; But trouble cometh.