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 YAHUVEH from above seek for it, Neither let the light shine upon it.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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:

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Because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb, Nor hid trouble from mine eyes.

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Why died I not from the womb? Why did I not give up the spirit when my mother bare me?

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

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For now should I have lain down and been quiet; I should have slept; then had I been at rest,

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With kings and counsellors of the earth, Who built up waste places for themselves;

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Or with princes that had gold, Who filled their houses with silver:

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Or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been, As infants that never saw light.

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There the wicked cease from troubling; And there the weary are at rest.

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There the prisoners are at ease together; They hear not the voice of the taskmaster.

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The small and the great are there: And the servant is free from his master.

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Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, And life unto the bitter in soul;

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Who long for death, but it cometh not, And dig for it more than for hid treasures;

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Who 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 YAHUVEH hath hedged in?

24

For my sighing cometh before I eat, And my groanings 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.