The Shared Word Translation · Study & Discuss
Job 3
Job Curses the Day of His Birth
After this Job opened his mouth and cursed his day.
Job answered and said:
“Let the day perish on which I was born,
and the night that said,
‘A male has been conceived.’
Let that day be darkness.
Let God above not seek it,
and let no light shine upon it.
Let darkness and death-shadow reclaim it;
let a cloud settle upon it;
let whatever darkens the day terrify it.
That night—let thick darkness seize it.
Let it not rejoice among the days of the year;
let it not enter the number of the months.
Look, let that night be barren;
let no joyful cry enter it.
Let those who curse days curse it,
those ready to rouse Leviathan.
Let the stars of its twilight grow dark.
Let it wait for light and find none;
let it not see the eyelids of dawn,
because it did not shut
the doors of my mother’s womb
or hide trouble from my eyes.
Why Did I Not Die at Birth?
Why did I not die from the womb,
come out from the belly and expire?
Why did knees receive me?
And why breasts, that I should nurse?
For now I would have lain down and been quiet;
I would have slept; then I would have been at rest,
with kings and counselors of the earth,
who built ruins for themselves,
or with princes who had gold,
who filled their houses with silver.
Or why was I not like a hidden miscarriage,
like infants who never saw light?
There the wicked cease from raging,
and there the weary are at rest.
Prisoners are at ease together;
they do not hear the voice of the taskmaster.
Small and great are there,
and the servant is free from his master.
Why Is Light Given to the Suffering?
Why is light given to one in misery,
and life to the bitter in soul,
who wait for death, but it does not come,
and dig for it more than for hidden treasures,
who rejoice exceedingly
and are glad when they find the grave?
Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden,
whom God has hedged in?
For my sighing comes before my bread,
and my groanings pour out like water.
For the terror I feared has come upon me,
and what I dreaded has happened to me.
I have no ease,
and I have no quiet,
and I have no rest—
yet trouble comes.”