Job 3

1. After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth.

2. And Job spoke and said,

3. “Let the day perish in which I was born, and the night in which it was said, ‘A man child is brought forth.’

4. Let that day be darkness. Let not God look upon it from above, neither let the light shine upon it.

5. Let darkness and the shadow of death claim it. Let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it.

6. As for that night, let 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 in it.

8. Let those curse it who curse the day, who are ready to stir up Leviathan.

9. Let the stars of its twilight be dark; let it look for light, but have none. Let it not see the dawning of the day.

10. For it did not shut up the doors of my mother’s womb, nor hide sorrow from my eyes.

11. Why did I not die from the womb, why did I not expire when I came from the womb?

12. Why did the knees receive me; or why the breasts, that I should suck?

13. For now I should have lain still and been quiet; I should have slept. Then I would have been at rest

14. With kings and wise men of the earth, who built desolate places for themselves,

15. Or with princes who had gold, who filled their houses with silver;

16. Or as a discarded untimely birth I would not exist, like infants who did not see light.

17. There the wicked cease raging, and there the weary are at rest;

18. There the prisoners are at rest together; they hear not the voice of the slave driver.

19. The small and the great are there, and the slave is free from his master.

20. Why is light given to him who is in misery, and life to the bitter in soul,

21. Who is waiting for death—but it comes not—and digs for it more than for hidden treasures?

22. They are rejoicing to exultation. They are glad when they can find the grave.

23. Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden, and whom God has made a hedge about?

24. For my sighing comes instead of my food, and my groanings are poured out like the waters.

25. For the thing which I greatly feared has come upon me, and that which I was afraid of has come to me.

26. I was not in safety, I have no rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble comes.”