Chapter 3

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

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  And Job spoke, and said,  

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  Let the day perish in which I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a mail child conceived.  

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

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  Let darkness and the shades of death stain it; let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it.  

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  As for that night, let darkness seize upon it; let it not be joined to the days of the year, let it not come into the number of the months.  

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  Lo, let that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein.  

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  Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning.  

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  Let the stars of its twilight be dark; let it look for light, but have none; neither let it see the dawning of the day:  

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  Because it prevented not my birth, nor hid sorrow from my eyes.  

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  Why died I not from the womb? why did I not expire at the time of my birth?  

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  Why did the knees receive me? or why the breasts that I should be nursed?  

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  For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept: then had I been at rest,  

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  With kings and counselors of the earth, who built desolate places for themselves;  

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  Or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver:  

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

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

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  There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor.  

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

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  Why is light given to him that is in misery, and life to the bitter in soul;  

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

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

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  Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in?  

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  For my sighing cometh before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters.  

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  For the thing which I greatly feared hath come upon me, and that which I dreaded hath come to me.  

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  I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came.  

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