Job 3

Job Regrets His Birth

¹Afterward Job opened his mouth and cursed his day.[#Literally “After thus”; #A different term than that employed in 1:5, 11; 2:5, 9]

²Thus Job spoke up and said,[#Hebrew “And”; #Literally “answered”]

³“Let the day perish on which I was born,

and the night that said, ‘A man-child is conceived.’

⁴Let that day become darkness;[#Or “be”]

may God not seek it from above,

nor may daylight shine on it.

⁵Let darkness and deep shadow claim it;

let clouds settle on it;

let them terrify it with the blackness of day.

⁶Let darkness seize that night;[#Literally “That night, let darkness seize it”]

let it not rejoice among the days of the year;

let it not enter among the number of the months.

⁷Look, let that night become barren;[#Or “be”]

let a joyful song not enter it.

⁸Let those who curse the day curse it,

those who are skilled at rousing Leviathan.

⁹Let the stars of its dawn be dark;

let it hope for light but there be none,

and let it not see the eyelids of dawn

¹⁰because it did not shut the doors of my mother’s womb,

nor did it hide trouble from my eyes.

Job Wishes He Had Died

¹¹“Why did I not die at birth?[#Literally “from”]

Why did I not come forth from the womb and expire?

¹²Why did the knees receive me

and the breasts, that I could suck?

¹³For now I would lie down, and I would be at peace;

I would be asleep; then I would be at rest

¹⁴with kings and counselors of the earth,

who rebuild ruins for themselves,

¹⁵or with high officials who have gold,[#Literally “gold is for them”]

who fill up their houses with silver.

¹⁶Or why was I not hidden like a miscarriage,

like infants who did not see the light?

¹⁷There the wicked cease from troubling,

and there the weary are at rest;

¹⁸the prisoners are at ease together;

they do not hear the oppressor’s voice.

¹⁹The small and the great are there,

and the slave is free from his masters.

Job Wishes He Might Die

²⁰“Why does he give light to one in misery[#Most likely God]

and life to those bitter of soul,

²¹who wait for death, but it does not come,[#Hebrew “and”; #Literally “it is not”]

and search for it more than for treasures,

²²who rejoice exceedingly,[#Literally “unto rejoicing”]

and they are glad when they find the grave?

²³Why does he give light to a man whose way is hidden,[#Most likely God]

and God has fenced him in all around?

²⁴For my sighing comes before my bread,[#Or perhaps emphatic, “Indeed”; #Or “in place of” (NET); literally “to the faces of”; #Or “food”]

and my groanings gush forth like water

²⁵because the dread that I feel has come upon me,[#Literally “dread”]

and what I feared befalls me.

²⁶I am not at ease, and I am not at peace,

and I do not have rest, thus turmoil has come.”