Job 3

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

2And Job spoke, and said:

3Let the day perish wherein I was born, And the night wherein it was said: ‘A man-child is brought forth.’

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

5Let 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.

6As 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.

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

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

9Let 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;

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

11Why died I not from the womb? Why did I not perish at birth?

12Why did the knees receive me? And wherefore the breasts, that I should suck?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

21Who long for death, but it cometh not; And dig for it more than for hid treasures;

22Who rejoice unto exultation, And are glad, when they can find the grave?—

23To a man whose way is hid, And whom God hath hedged in?

24For my sighing cometh instead of my food, And my roarings are poured out like water.

25For the thing which I did fear is come upon me, And that which I was afraid of hath overtaken me.

26I was not at ease, neither was I quiet, Neither had I rest; but trouble came.