Chapter 3

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

  Job answered:  

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

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

  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.  

  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.  

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

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

  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,  

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been, As infants who never saw light.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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