1 After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day. 2 And Job answered and said: 3 Let the day perish wherein I was born, And the night which said, There is a man child conceived 4 Let that day be darkness; Let not God regard it from above, Neither let the light shine upon it 5 Let darkness and the shadow of death claim it for their own; Let a cloud dwell upon it; Let all that maketh black the day terrify it. 6 As for that night, let thick darkness seize upon it: Let it not rejoice among the days of the year; Let it not come into the number of the months 7 Lo, let that night be barren; Let no joyful voice come therein 8 Let them curse it that curse the day, Who are ready to rouse up leviathan 9 Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark: Let it look for light, but have none; Neither let it behold the eyelids of the morning: 10 Because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb, Nor hid trouble from mine eyes 11 Why died I not from the womb? Why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly? 12 Why did the knees receive me? or why 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, Which built up waste places for themselves; 15 Or with princes that had gold, Who filled their houses with silver: 16 Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; As infants which never saw light 17 There the wicked cease from troubling; And there the weary be at rest 18 There the prisoners are at ease together; They hear not the voice of the taskmaster 19 The small and great are there; And the servant is free from his master 20 Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, And life unto the bitter in soul; 21 Which long for death, but it cometh not; And dig for it more than for hid treasures; 22 Which rejoice exceedingly, And are glad, when they can find the grave? 23 Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, And whom God hath hedged in? 24 For my sighing cometh before I eat, And my roarings are poured out like water 25 For the thing which I fear cometh upon me, And that which I am afraid of cometh unto me 26 I am not at ease, neither am I quiet, neither have I rest; But trouble cometh. |
historical text maintained by the British and Foreign Bible Society
British & Foreign Bible Society