Job 3 :: English Standard Version (ESV)

Job Laments His Birth

Job 3:1

Job 3:1After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth.

Job 3:2

Job 3:2And Job said:

Job 3:3

Job 3:3“Let the day perish on which I was born,
and the night that said,
‘A man is conceived.’

Job 3:4

Job 3:4Let that day be darkness!
May God above not seek it,
nor light shine upon it.

Job 3:5

Job 3:5Let gloom and deep darkness claim it.
Let clouds dwell upon it;
let the blackness of the day terrify it.

Job 3:6

Job 3:6That night—let thick darkness seize it!
Let it not rejoice among the days of the year;
let it not come into the number of the months.

Job 3:7

Job 3:7Behold, let that night be barren;
let no joyful cry enter it.

Job 3:8

Job 3:8Let those curse it who curse the day,
who are ready to rouse up Leviathan.

Job 3:9

Job 3:9Let the stars of its dawn be dark;
let it hope for light, but have none,
nor see the eyelids of the morning,

Job 3:10

Job 3:10because it did not shut the doors of my mother’s womb,
nor hide trouble from my eyes.

Job 3:11

Job 3:11“Why did I not die at birth,
come out from the womb and expire?

Job 3:12

Job 3:12Why did the knees receive me?
Or why the breasts, that I should nurse?

Job 3:13

Job 3:13For then I would have lain down and been quiet;
I would have slept; then I would have been at rest,

Job 3:14

Job 3:14with kings and counselors of the earth
who rebuilt ruins for themselves,

Job 3:15

Job 3:15or with princes who had gold,
who filled their houses with silver.

Job 3:16

Job 3:16Or why was I not as a hidden stillborn child,
as infants who never see the light?

Job 3:17

Job 3:17There the wicked cease from troubling,
and there the weary are at rest.

Job 3:18

Job 3:18There the prisoners are at ease together;
they hear not the voice of the taskmaster.

Job 3:19

Job 3:19The small and the great are there,
and the slave is free from his master.

Job 3:20

Job 3:20“Why is light given to him who is in misery,
and life to the bitter in soul,

Job 3:21

Job 3:21who long for death, but it comes not,
and dig for it more than for hidden treasures,

Job 3:22

Job 3:22who rejoice exceedingly
and are glad when they find the grave?

Job 3:23

Job 3:23Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden,
whom God has hedged in?

Job 3:24

Job 3:24For my sighing comes instead of[fn] my bread,
and my groanings are poured out like water.

Job 3:25

Job 3:25For the thing that I fear comes upon me,
and what I dread befalls me.

Job 3:26

Job 3:26I am not at ease, nor am I quiet;
I have no rest, but trouble comes.”

See the ESV Preface (Especially for Parenthesis, Brackets, & Asterisks).

ESV Footnotes

(3:24)

Or like; Hebrew before

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