1 After this Job opened his mouth, and cursed the day of his birth. 2 Job answered: 3 "Let the day perish in which I was born, the night which said, 'There is a boy conceived.' 4 Let that day be darkness. Don't let God from above seek for it, neither let the light shine on it. 5 Let darkness and the shadow of death claim it for their own. Let a cloud dwell on it. Let all that makes black the day terrify it. 6 As for that night, let thick darkness seize on 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 voice come therein. 8 Let them curse it who curse the day, who are ready to rouse up leviathan. 9 Let the stars of its twilight be dark. Let it look for light, but have none, neither let it see the eyelids of the morning, 10 because it didn't shut up the doors of my mother's womb, nor did it hide trouble from my eyes. 11 "Why didn't I die from the womb? Why didn't I give up the spirit when my mother bore me? 12 Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breast, that I should nurse? 13 For now should I have lain down and been quiet. I should have slept, then I would have been at rest, 14 with kings and counselors of the earth, who built up waste 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 who never saw light. 17 There the wicked cease from troubling. There the weary are at rest. 18 There the prisoners are at ease together. They don't hear the voice of the taskmaster. 19 The small and the great are there. The servant is free from his master. 20 "Why is light given to him who is in misery, life to the bitter in soul, 21 Who long for death, but it doesn't come; and dig for it more than for hidden treasures, 22 who rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find the grave? 23 Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden, whom God has hedged in? 24 For my sighing comes before I eat. My groanings are poured out like water. 25 For the thing which I fear comes on me, That which I am afraid of comes to me. 26 I am not at ease, neither am I quiet, neither have I rest; but trouble comes."
INTRODUCTION TO JOB 3
In this chapter we have an account of Job's cursing the day of his birth, and the night of his conception; Job 3:1; first the day, to which he wishes the most extreme darkness, Job 3:4; then the night, to which he wishes the same and that it might be destitute of all joy, and be cursed by others as well as by himself, Job 3:6; The reasons follow, because it did not prevent his coming into the world, and because he died not on it, Job 3:10; which would, as he judged, have been an happiness to him; and this he illustrates by the still and quiet state of the dead, the company they are with, and their freedom from all trouble, oppression, and bondage, Job 3:13; but however, since it was otherwise with him, he desires his life might not be prolonged, and expostulates about the continuance of it, Job 3:20; and this by reason of his present troubles, which were many and great, and came upon him as he feared they would, and which had made him uneasy in his prosperity, Job 3:24.
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