Job 3-4

Job 3

¹After this Job opened his mouth, and cursed the day of his birth.

²Job answered:

³“Let the day perish in which I was born, the night which said, ‘There is a boy conceived.’

⁴Let that day be darkness. Don’t let God from above seek for it, neither let the light shine on it.

⁵Let darkness and the shadow of death claim it for their own. Let a cloud dwell on it. Let all that makes the day black terrify it.

⁶As 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.

⁷Behold, let that night be barren. Let no joyful voice come therein.

⁸Let them curse it who curse the day, who are ready to rouse up leviathan.

⁹Let the stars of its twilight be dark. Let it look for light, but have none, neither let it see the eyelids of the morning,

¹⁰because 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?

¹²Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breast, that I should nurse?

¹³For now I should have lain down and been quiet. I should have slept, then I would have been at rest,

¹⁴with kings and counselors of the earth, who built up waste places for themselves;

¹⁵or with princes who had gold, who filled their houses with silver;

¹⁶or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been, as infants who never saw light.

¹⁷There the wicked cease from troubling. There the weary are at rest.

¹⁸There the prisoners are at ease together. They don’t hear the voice of the taskmaster.

¹⁹The 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,

²¹who long for death, but it doesn’t come; and dig for it more than for hidden treasures,

²²who rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find the grave?

²³Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden, whom God has hedged in?

²⁴For my sighing comes before I eat. My groanings are poured out like water.

²⁵For the thing which I fear comes on me, that which I am afraid of comes to me.

²⁶I am not at ease, neither am I quiet, neither do I have rest; but trouble comes.”

Job 4

¹Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered,

²“If someone ventures to talk with you, will you be grieved? But who can withhold himself from speaking?

³Behold, you have instructed many, you have strengthened the weak hands.

⁴Your words have supported him who was falling, you have made the feeble knees firm.

⁵But now it has come to you, and you faint. It touches you, and you are troubled.

⁶Isn’t your piety your confidence? Isn’t the integrity of your ways your hope?

⁷“Remember, now, who ever perished, being innocent? Or where were the upright cut off?

⁸According to what I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble, reap the same.

⁹By the breath of God they perish. By the blast of his anger are they consumed.

¹⁰The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the fierce lion, the teeth of the young lions, are broken.

¹¹The old lion perishes for lack of prey. The cubs of the lioness are scattered abroad.

¹²“Now a thing was secretly brought to me. My ear received a whisper of it.

¹³In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on men,

¹⁴fear came on me, and trembling, which made all my bones shake.

¹⁵Then a spirit passed before my face. The hair of my flesh stood up.

¹⁶It stood still, but I couldn’t discern its appearance. A form was before my eyes. Silence, then I heard a voice, saying,

¹⁷‘Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure than his Maker?

¹⁸Behold, he puts no trust in his servants. He charges his angels with error.

¹⁹How much more those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed before the moth!

²⁰Between morning and evening they are destroyed. They perish forever without any regarding it.

²¹Isn’t their tent cord plucked up within them? They die, and that without wisdom.’