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The Book of Job

Chapter 3

After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day.
   2 And Job spake, and said,
   3 Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived.
   4 Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it.
   5 Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it.
   6 As for that night, let darkness seize upon it; let it not be joined unto the days of the year, let it not come into the number of the months.
   7 Lo, let that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein.
   8 Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning.
   9 Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark; let it look for light, but have none; neither let it see the dawning of the day:
   10 Because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb, nor hid sorrow from mine eyes.

  11 Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?
   12 Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I should suck?
   13 For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept: then had I been at rest,
   14 With kings and counsellors of the earth, which built desolate places for themselves;
   15 Or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver:
   16 Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light.
   17 There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest.
   18 There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor.
   19 The small and great are there; and the servant is free from his master.

  20 Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul;
   21 Which long for death, but it cometh not; and dig for it more than for hid treasures;
   22 Which rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find the grave?
   23 Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in?
   24 For my sighing cometh before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters.
   25 For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.
   26 I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came.

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