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Job / Job's Lament: Cursing the Day of His Birth
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Job's Lament: Cursing the Day of His Birth

Job 3:1-26

3
Chapter 3
1 After this Job opened his mouth and cursed his day. 2 And Job answered and said: 3 May the day perish on which I was born, and the night that said, "A man has conceived." 4 That day—let it be darkness. Let God not seek it from above, nor let light shine upon it. 5 May darkness and the shadow of death redeem it; may a cloud dwell upon it; may it terrify it like the bitternesses of day. 6 That night—let darkness take it; let it not join the days of the year, in the number of the months. 7 Look, let that night be solitary; let no joyful shouting come into it. 8 Let those who curse the day rise up against him, the ones ready to conjure Leviathan. 9 May its twilight stars grow dark; may it wait for light, but there is none, and may it not see the eyelids of dawn. 10 for it did not close the doors of my belly and hide toil from my eyes. 11 Why did I not die at birth, when I came out of the womb and gasped for air? 12 Why did knees come before me, and breasts, that I should nurse? 13 For now I would have lain down and been quiet; I would have slept, then it would have been rest for me. 14 with kings and counselors of the earth, the sons desolated for them. 15 or with princes gold for them, the ones filling their houses with silver. 16 or like a miscarried one hidden away. I will not be like children who did not see light. 17 There the wicked cease from trembling, and there the weary of strength rest. 18 The prisoners rest together; they do not hear the voice of a taskmaster. 19 There the small and great are, and the servant is free from his lords. 20 Why does he give light to the toiling one, and life to the bitter of soul? 21 the one who waits for death, but it does not come, and digs for it from the hidden treasures 22 Those who rejoice over me will shout for joy with exultation, for they will find a grave. 23 To the man whose way is hidden and whom God hedges in. 24 For before my bread of the Presence my groanings come, and my roarings pour out like waters. 25 For the terror I feared has come upon me, and what I dreaded has come upon me. 26 Not peace, nor did I rest, nor was I quiet, and turmoil came.