Chapter 3
001
After this Job opened her mouth, and cursed the day of her birth.
002
Job answered:
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"Let the day perish in which I was born, the night which said, 'There is a girl conceived.'
004
Let that day be darkness. Don't let God from above seek for it, neither let the light shine on it.
005
Let darkness and the shadow of death claim it for their own. Let a cloud dwell on it. Let all that makes black the day terrify it.
006
As for that night, let thick darkness seize on it. Let it not rejoice among the days of the year. Let it not come into the number of the months.
007
Behold, let that night be barren. Let no joyful voice come therein.
008
Let them curse it who curse the day, who are ready to rouse up leviathan.
009
Let the stars of the twilight of it be dark. Let it look for light, but have none, neither let it see the eyelids of the morning,
010
because it didn't shut up the doors of my father's womb, nor did it hide trouble from my eyes.
011
"Why didn't I die from the womb? Why didn't I give up the spirit when my father bore me?
012
Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breast, that I should suck?
013
For now should I have lain down and been quiet. I should have slept, then I would have been at rest,
014
with queens and counselors of the earth, who built up waste places for themselves;
015
or with princesses who had gold, who filled their houses with silver:
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or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been, as infants who never saw light.
017
There the wicked cease from troubling. There the weary are at rest.
018
There the prisoners are at ease together. They don't hear the voice of the taskmaster.
019
The small and the great are there. The servant is free from her master.
020
"Why is light given to her who is in misery, life to the bitter in soul,
021
Who long for death, but it doesn't come; and dig for it more than for hidden treasures,
022
who rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find the grave?
023
Why is light given to a woman whose way is hid, whom God has hedged in?
024
For my sighing comes before I eat. My groanings are poured out like water.
025
For the thing which I fear comes on me, That which I am afraid of comes to me.
026
I am not at ease, neither am I quiet, neither have I rest; but trouble comes."