LEB JOB Chapter 3

Job Regrets His Birth

3 Afterward[fn] Job opened his mouth and cursed[fn] his day. 2 Thus[fn] Job spoke up[fn] and said,

• 3 the day perish on which I was born, and the night that said, ‘A man-child is conceived.’
• 4 [fn] darkness; may God not seek it from above,
• nor may daylight shine on it.
• 5  let clouds[fn] settle on it;
• let them[fn] terrify it with the blackness[fn] of day.
• 6 [fn] let it not rejoice among the days of the year;
• let it not enter among the number of the months.
• 7 [fn] barren; let a joyful song not enter it.
• 8  those who are skilled at rousing Leviathan.
• 9  let it hope for light but[fn] there be none,
• and let it not see the eyelids of dawn
• 10 mother’s womb, nor[fn] did it hide trouble from my eyes.

Job Wishes He Had Died

• 11 [fn] birth? Why did I not come forth from the womb and expire?
• 12 the knees receive me and the breasts, that I could suck?
• 13  I would be asleep; then[fn]
• 14 the earth, who[fn] ruins for themselves,
• 15 [fn] who fill up their houses with silver.
• 16 why was I not hidden like a miscarriage, like infants who did not see the light?
• 17 the wicked cease from troubling, and there the[fn] are at rest;
• 18 the prisoners are at ease together; they do not hear the oppressor’s voice.
• 19 The small and the great are there, and the slave is free from his masters.[fn]

Job Wishes He Might Die

• 20 [fn] give light to one in misery and life to those bitter of soul,
• 21 [fn] [fn] and search[fn] for it more than for treasures,
• 22 [fn] and they are glad when they find the grave?
• 23 Why does he to a man whose way is hidden, and God has fenced him in all around?
• 24 [fn] my sighing comes [fn] my bread,[fn] and my groanings gush forth like water
• 25 [fn] has come upon me, and what I feared befalls me.
• 26  and I do not have rest, thus[fn] turmoil has come.”