| 1 |
After this, Job opened his mouth and cursed his day. |
| 2 |
And Job answered and said, |
| 3 |
Let the day perish in which I was born, and the night that said, There is a man child conceived. |
| 4 |
That day -- let it be darkness, let not +God care for it from above, neither let light shine upon it: |
| 5 |
Let darkness and the shadow of death claim it; let clouds dwell upon it; let darkeners of the day terrify it. |
| 6 |
That night -- let gloom seize upon it; let it not rejoice among the days of the year; let it not come into the number of the months. |
| 7 |
Behold, let that night be barren; let no joyful sound come therein; |
| 8 |
Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to rouse Leviathan; |
| 9 |
Let the stars of its twilight be dark; let it wait for light, and have none, neither let it see the eyelids of the dawn: |
| 10 |
Because it shut not up the doors of the womb that bore me, and hid not trouble from mine eyes. |
| 11 |
Wherefore did I not die from the womb, -- come forth from the belly and expire? |
| 12 |
Why did the knees meet me? and wherefore the breasts, 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 build desolate places for themselves, |
| 15 |
Or with princes who had gold, who filled their houses with silver; |
| 16 |
Or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants that have not seen the light. |
| 17 |
There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the wearied are at rest. |
| 18 |
The prisoners together are at ease; they hear not the voice of the taskmaster. |
| 19 |
The small and great are there, and the bondman freed from his master. |
| 20 |
Wherefore is light given to him that is in trouble, and life to those bitter of soul, |
| 21 |
Who long for death, and it [cometh] not, and dig for it more than for hidden treasures; |
| 22 |
Who rejoice even exultingly and are glad when they find the grave? -- |
| 23 |
To the man whose way is hidden, and whom +God hath hedged in? |
| 24 |
For my sighing cometh before my bread, and my groanings are poured out like the waters. |
| 25 |
For I feared a fear, and it hath come upon me, and that which I dreaded hath come to me. |
| 26 |
I was not in safety, neither had I quietness, neither was I at rest, and trouble came. |