Chapter 3

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

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  Job answered:  

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  'Let the day perish in which I was born, The night which said, 'There is a man-child conceived.'  

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  Let that day be darkness; Don't let God from above seek for it, Neither let the light shine on it.  

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  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.  

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  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.  

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  Behold, let that night be barren. Let no joyful voice come therein.  

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

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  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,  

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  Because it didn't shut up the doors of my mother's womb, Nor did it hide trouble from my eyes.  

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  'Why didn't I die from the womb? Why didn't I give up the spirit when my mother bore me?  

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

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  For now should I have lain down and been quiet. I should have slept, then I would have been at rest,  

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

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  Or with princes 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.  

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

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  There the prisoners are at ease together. They don't hear the voice of the taskmaster.  

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

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  'Why is light given to him who is in misery, Life to the bitter in soul,  

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  Who long for death, but it doesn't come; Dig for it more than for hidden treasures,  

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  Who rejoice exceedingly, Are glad, when they can find the grave?  

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  Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, Whom God has hedged in?  

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  For my sighing comes before I eat, My groanings are poured out like water.  

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  For the thing which I fear comes on me, That which I am afraid of comes to me.  

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  I am not at ease, neither am I quiet, neither have I rest; But trouble comes.'  

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