Chapter 3
1 After this Job opened his mouth , and cursed the day of his birth.
2 Job answered :
3 "Let the day perish in which I was born , the night which said, ‘ There is a boy conceived.’
4 Let that day be darkness . Don’t let God from above seek for it , neither let the light shine on it .
5 Let darkness and the shadow of death claim it for their own. Let a cloud dwell on it . Let all that makes the day black terrify it .
6 As for that night , let thick darkness seize on it . Let it not rejoice amongst the days of the year . Let it not come into the number of the months .
7 Behold , let that night be barren . Let no joyful voice come therein.
8 Let them curse it who curse the day , who are ready to rouse up leviathan .
9 Let the stars of its twilight be dark . Let it look for light , but have none, neither let it see the eyelids of the morning ,
10 because it didn’t shut up the doors of my mother’s womb, nor did it hide trouble from my eyes .
11 " Why didn’t I die from the womb ? Why didn’t I give up the spirit when my mother bore me ?
12 Why did the knees receive me ? Or why the breast , that I should nurse ?
13 For now I should have lain down and been quiet . I should have slept , then I would have been at rest ,
14 with kings and counsellors of the earth, who built up waste places for themselves ;
15 or with princes who had gold , who filled their houses with silver ;
16 or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been , as infants who never saw light.
17 There the wicked cease from troubling . There the weary are at rest .
18 There the prisoners are at ease together . They don’t hear the voice of the taskmaster .
19 The small and the great are there . The servant is free from his master.
20 " Why is light given to him who is in misery , life to the bitter in soul ,
21 who long for death , but it doesn’t come; and dig for it more than for hidden 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 hidden , whom God has hedged in ?
24 For my sighing comes before I eat . My groanings are poured out like water .
25 For the thing which I fear comes on me , that which I am afraid of comes to me .
26 I am not at ease , neither am I quiet , neither do I have rest ; but trouble comes."