Job 3:1-26
3 It was after this that Job opened his mouth and began to call down evil upon his day.+
2 Job now answered and said:
3 “Let the day perish on which I came to be born,+Also the night that someone said, ‘An able-bodied man* has been conceived!’
4 As for that day, let it become darkness.Let not God* look for it from above,Nor let daylight beam upon it.
5 Let darkness and deep shadow* reclaim it.Let a rain cloud reside over it.Let the things that darken a day terrorize it.+
6 That night—let gloom take it;+Let it not feel glad among the days of a year;Among the number of the lunar months let it not enter.
7 Look! That night—let it become sterile;Let no joyful cry come in it.+
8 Let cursers* of the day execrate it,Those ready to awaken Le·viʹa·than.*+
9 Let the stars of its twilight grow dark;Let it wait for the light and there be none;And let it not see the beams of dawn.
10 For it did not close the doors of my [mother’s] belly,+And so conceal trouble from my eyes.
11 Why from the womb did I not proceed to die?+[Why did I not] come forth from the belly itself and then expire?
12 Why was it that knees confronted me,And why breasts+ that I should take suck?
13 For by now I should have lain down that I might be undisturbed;+I should have slept then; I should be at rest+
14 With kings and counselors of the earth,+Those building desolate places* for themselves,+
15 Or with princes who have gold,Those who fill their houses with silver;
16 Or, like a hidden miscarriage,+ I should not come to be,Like children that have seen no light.+
17 There the wicked themselves have ceased from agitation,+And there those weary in power are at rest.+
18 Together prisoners themselves are at ease;They actually do not hear the voice of one driving them to work.+
19 Small and great are there the same,+And the slave is set free from his master.*
20 Why does he give light to one having trouble,And life to those bitter of soul?+
21 Why are there those waiting for death, and it is not,+Although they keep digging for it more than for hidden treasures?
22 Those who are rejoicing to gleefulness,*They exult because they find a burial place.
23 [Why does he give light] to able-bodied man,* whose way has been concealed,+And whom God* hedges in?+
24 For before my food my sighing comes,+And like waters my roaring cries pour forth;+
25 Because a dreadful thing I have dreaded, and it comes upon me;And what I have been scared of comes to me.+
26 I have not been carefree, nor have I been undisturbed,Nor been at rest, and yet agitation comes.”
Footnotes
^ “An able-bodied man.” Heb., ghaʹver.
^ “God.” Heb., ʼElohʹah, sing. of ʼElo·himʹ. ʼElohʹah occurs 41 times in Job and 16 times in other books of M. See De 32:15 ftn, “God.”
^ Lit., “death shadow.”
^ “Leviathan,” MSyVg; LXX, “the great sea monster.”
^ “Pyramids,” by a correction.
^ “From his master.” Heb., me·ʼadho·navʹ, pl. of ʼa·dhohnʹ, to denote excellence.
^ “At a stone heap,” by a slight correction of M, to correspond with “burial place” in the same vs.
^ “To able-bodied man.” Heb., legheʹver. See vs 3 ftn.
^ See vs 4 ftn.
