Job



Chapter 3

II. Job's Dialogue With His Friends (3:1-27:33)


Job Regrets His Birth

   1 After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day he was born. 2 Job spoke up and said:
   3 "Let the day on which I was born perish, and the night that said, 'A man has been conceived!'
   4 That day - let it be darkness; let not God on high regard it, nor let light shine on it!
   5 Let darkness and the deepest shadow claim it; let a cloud settle on it; let whatever blackens the day terrify it!
   6 That night - let darkness seize it; let it not be included among the days of the year; let it not enter among the number of the months!
   7 Indeed, let that night be barren; let no shout of joy penetrate it!
   8 Let those who curse the day curse it - those who are prepared to rouse Leviathan.
   9 Let its morning stars be darkened; let it wait for daylight but find none, nor let it see the first rays of dawn,
   10 because it did not shut the doors of my mother's womb on me, nor did it hide trouble from my eyes!

Job Wishes He Had Died at Birth

   11 "Why did I not die at birth, and why did I not expire as I came out of the womb?
   12 Why did the knees welcome me, and why were there two breasts that I might nurse at them?
   13 For now I would be lying down and would be quiet, I would be asleep and then at peace
   14 with kings and counselors of the earth who built for themselves places now desolate,
   15 or with princes who possessed gold, who filled their palaces with silver.
   16 Or why was I not buried like a stillborn infant, like infants who have never seen the light?
   17 There the wicked cease from turmoil, and there the weary are at rest.
   18 There the prisoners relax together; they do not hear the voice of the oppressor.
   19 Small and great are there, and the slave is free from his master.

Longing for Death

   20 "Why does God give light to one who is in misery, and life to those whose soul is bitter,
   21 to those who wait for death that does not come, and search for it more than for hidden treasures,
   22 who rejoice even to jubilation, and are exultant when they find the grave?
   23 Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden, and whom God has hedged in?
   24 For my sighing comes in place of my food, and my groanings flow forth like water.
   25 For the very thing I dreaded has happened to me, and what I feared has come upon me.
   26 I have no ease, I have no quietness; I cannot rest; turmoil has come upon me."