Job 3 | ASV | e4.org | After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day.

‏ Job 3

1 After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day. 2 And Job answered and said: 3 Let the day perish wherein I was born, And the night which said, There is a man-child conceived. 4 Let that day be darkness; Let not God from above seek for it, Neither let the light shine upon it. 5 Let darkness and ^▼▼1 the shadow of death claim it for their own; Let a cloud dwell upon it; Let all that maketh black the day terrify it. ^{▼▼1) Or deep darkness (and so elsewhere)} 6 As for that night, let thick darkness seize upon it: Let it not rejoice among the days of the year; Let it not come into the number of the months. 7 Lo, let that night be ^▼▼1 barren; Let no joyful voice come therein. ^{▼▼1) Or solitary} 8 Let them curse it that curse the day, Who are ^▼▼1 ready to rouse up leviathan. ^{▼▼1) Or skilful} 9 Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark: Let it look for light, but have none; Neither let it behold the eyelids of the morning: 10 Because it shut not up the doors of my mother’s womb, Nor hid trouble from mine eyes.

11 Why died I not from the womb? Why did I not give up the ghost when my mother bare me? 12 Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breast, that I should suck? 13 For now should I have lain down and been quiet; I should have slept; then had I been at rest, 14 With kings and counsellors of the earth, Who ^▼▼1 built up waste places for themselves; ^{▼▼1) Or built solitary piles} 15 Or with princes that had gold, Who filled their houses with silver: 16 Or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been, As infants that never saw light. 17 There the wicked cease from ^▼▼1 troubling; And there the weary are at rest. ^{▼▼1) Or raging} 18 There the prisoners are at ease together; They hear not the voice of the taskmaster. 19 The small and the 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 Who ^▼▼1 long for death, but it cometh not, And dig for it more than for hid treasures; ^{▼▼1) Heb wait} 22 Who rejoice ^▼▼1 exceedingly, And are glad, when they can find the grave? ^{▼▼1) Or unto exultation} 23 Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, And whom God hath hedged in? 24 For my sighing cometh ^▼▼1 before I eat, And my ^▼▼2 groanings are poured out like water. ^{▼▼1) Or like my food 2) Heb roarings} 25 For ^▼▼1 the thing which I fear cometh upon me, And that which I am afraid of cometh unto me. ^{▼▼1) Or the thing which I feared is come etc} 26 I ^▼▼1 am not at ease, neither am I quiet, neither have I rest; But trouble cometh. ^{▼▼1) Or was not at ease…yet trouble came}