Job 3

¹⁴Cursed be the day I was born! May the day my mother bore me never be blessed.

¹⁵Cursed be the man who brought my father the news, saying, “A son is born to you,” bringing him great joy.

³³For they rebelled against His Spirit, and Moses spoke rashly with his lips.

²I was speechless and still; I remained silent, even from speaking good, and my sorrow was stirred.

³My heart grew hot within me; as I mused, the fire burned. Then I spoke with my tongue:

⁹Then Job’s wife said to him, “Do you still retain your integrity? Curse God and die!”

¹⁰“You speak as a foolish woman speaks,” he told her. “Should we accept from God only good and not adversity?” In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.

³“May the day of my birth perish, and the night it was said, ‘A boy is conceived.’

¹⁶So Job opens his mouth in vain and multiplies words without knowledge.”

¹⁴Cursed be the day I was born! May the day my mother bore me never be blessed.

¹⁵Cursed be the man who brought my father the news, saying, “A son is born to you,” bringing him great joy.

¹⁰Woe to me, my mother, that you have borne me, a man of strife and conflict in all the land. I have neither lent nor borrowed, yet everyone curses me.

¹⁸Why then did You bring me from the womb? Oh, that I had died, and no eye had seen me!

¹⁹If only I had never come to be, but had been carried from the womb to the grave.

⁴⁵From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land.

¹⁸Woe to you who long for the Day of the Lord! What will the Day of the Lord be for you? It will be darkness and not light.

¹⁰And the fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and its kingdom was plunged into darkness, and men began to gnaw their tongues in anguish

¹²It is a land for which the Lord your God cares; the eyes of the Lord your God are always on it, from the beginning to the end of the year.

²a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness. Like the dawn overspreading the mountains a great and strong army appears, such as never was of old, nor will ever be in ages to come.

²²So Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven, and total darkness covered all the land of Egypt for three days.

²³No one could see anyone else, and for three days no one left his place. Yet all the Israelites had light in their dwellings.

²¹before I go—never to return—to a land of darkness and gloom,

²²to a land of utter darkness, of deep shadow and disorder, where even the light is like darkness.”

³Man puts an end to the darkness; he probes the farthest recesses for ore in deepest darkness.

⁶They did not ask, ‘Where is the Lord who brought us up from the land of Egypt, who led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and pits, a land of drought and darkness, a land where no one travels and no one lives?’

⁴Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

¹⁴He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death and broke away their chains.

²⁸Therefore the earth will mourn and the heavens above will grow dark. I have spoken, I have planned, and I will not relent or turn back.”

²⁰She will never be inhabited or settled from generation to generation; no nomad will pitch his tent there, no shepherd will rest his flock there.

²¹But desert creatures will lie down there, and howling creatures will fill her houses. Ostriches will dwell there, and wild goats will leap about.

³⁴I will remove from the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem the sounds of joy and gladness and the voices of the bride and bridegroom, for the land will become a wasteland.”

²²And the sound of harpists and musicians, of flute players and trumpeters, will never ring out in you again. Nor will any craftsmen of any trade be found in you again, nor the sound of a millstone be heard in you again.

²³The light of a lamp will never shine in you again, and the voices of a bride and bridegroom will never call out in you again. For your merchants were the great ones of the earth, because all the nations were deceived by your sorcery.”

⁸The joyful tambourines have ceased; the noise of revelers has stopped; the joyful harp is silent.

¹“Can you pull in Leviathan with a hook or tie down his tongue with a rope?

¹⁰No one is so fierce as to rouse Leviathan. Then who is able to stand against Me?

²⁵Then Jeremiah lamented over Josiah, and to this day all the male and female singers recite laments over Josiah. They established them as a statute for Israel, and indeed they are written in the Book of Laments.

¹⁷This is what the Lord of Hosts says: “Take note, and summon the wailing women; send for the most skillful among them.

¹⁸Let them come quickly and take up a lament over us, that our eyes may overflow with tears, and our eyelids may gush with water.

²⁵When Leviathan rises up, the mighty are terrified; they withdraw before his thrashing.

³⁸When they arrived at the house of the synagogue leader, Jesus saw the commotion and the people weeping and wailing loudly.

¹⁸His snorting flashes with light, and his eyes are like the rays of dawn.

¹⁵We hoped for peace, but no good has come, for a time of healing, but there was only terror.

¹⁶Give glory to the Lord your God before He brings darkness, before your feet stumble on the dusky mountains. You wait for light, but He turns it into deep gloom and thick darkness.

²⁶But when I hoped for good, evil came; when I looked for light, darkness fell.

³A man may father a hundred children and live for many years; yet no matter how long he lives, if he is unsatisfied with his prosperity and does not even receive a proper burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he.

⁴For a stillborn child enters in futility and departs in darkness, and his name is shrouded in obscurity.

¹⁸for on account of Abraham’s wife Sarah, the Lord had completely closed all the wombs in Abimelech’s household.

¹⁷because he did not kill me in the womb so that my mother might have been my grave, and her womb forever enlarged.

⁵But to Hannah he would give a double portion, for he loved her even though the Lord had closed her womb.

³¹When the Lord saw that Leah was unloved, He opened her womb; but Rachel was barren.

¹⁰So banish sorrow from your heart, and cast off pain from your body, for youth and vigor are fleeting.

³“Listen to Me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been sustained from the womb, carried along since birth.

¹⁸Why then did You bring me from the womb? Oh, that I had died, and no eye had seen me!

¹⁹If only I had never come to be, but had been carried from the womb to the grave.

¹⁴Give them, O Lord—what will You give? Give them wombs that miscarry and breasts that dry up!

¹⁰Woe to me, my mother, that you have borne me, a man of strife and conflict in all the land. I have neither lent nor borrowed, yet everyone curses me.

¹³For You formed my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb.

¹⁴I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are Your works, and I know this very well.

⁸Like a slug that dissolves in its slime, like a woman’s stillborn child, may they never see the sun.

³Then she said, “Here is my maidservant Bilhah. Sleep with her, that she may bear children for me, so that through her I too can build a family.”

¹²For this is what the Lord says: “I will extend peace to her like a river, and the wealth of nations like a flowing stream; you will nurse and be carried on her arm, and bounced upon her knees.

²³He saw Ephraim’s sons to the third generation, and indeed the sons of Machir son of Manasseh were brought up on Joseph’s knees.

⁴On the day of your birth your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water for cleansing. You were not rubbed with salt or wrapped in cloths.

⁵No one cared enough for you to do even one of these things out of compassion for you. Instead, you were thrown out into the open field, because you were despised on the day of your birth.

¹⁰Whatever you find to do with your hands, do it with all your might, for in Sheol, where you are going, there is no work or planning or knowledge or wisdom.

¹⁰But a man dies and is laid low; he breathes his last, and where is he?

¹¹As water disappears from the sea and a river becomes parched and dry,

¹³They spend their days in prosperity and go down to Sheol in peace.

²¹Why do You not pardon my transgression and take away my iniquity? For soon I will lie down in the dust; You will seek me, but I will be no more.”

³A man may father a hundred children and live for many years; yet no matter how long he lives, if he is unsatisfied with his prosperity and does not even receive a proper burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he.

⁴For a stillborn child enters in futility and departs in darkness, and his name is shrouded in obscurity.

²³One man dies full of vigor, completely secure and at ease.

²⁸he will dwell in ruined cities, in abandoned houses destined to become rubble.

⁴⁸What man can live and never see death? Can he deliver his soul from the power of Sheol? Selah

¹⁰They will all respond to you, saying, “You too have become weak, as we are; you have become like us!”

¹¹Your pomp has been brought down to Sheol, along with the music of your harps. Maggots are your bed and worms your blanket.

¹⁴Like sheep they are destined for Sheol. Death will be their shepherd. The upright will rule them in the morning, and their form will decay in Sheol, far from their lofty abode.

⁶They trust in their wealth and boast in their great riches.

⁷No man can possibly redeem his brother or pay his ransom to God.

¹²Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins; you will restore the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of the Breach, Restorer of the Streets of Dwelling.

²⁷The king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones, and cedar as abundant as sycamore in the foothills.

²⁵then the Almighty will be your gold and the finest silver for you.

¹⁸Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to deliver them on the Day of the Lord’s wrath. The whole earth will be consumed by the fire of His jealousy.” For indeed, He will make a sudden end of all who dwell on the earth.

¹⁸But Balaam replied to the servants of Balak, “If Balak were to give me his house full of silver and gold, I could not do anything small or great to go beyond the command of the Lord my God.

¹⁶Though he heaps up silver like dust and piles up a wardrobe like clay,

¹⁷what he lays up, the righteous will wear, and his silver will be divided by the innocent.

⁷Their land is full of silver and gold, with no limit to their treasures; their land is full of horses, with no limit to their chariots.

⁸Like a slug that dissolves in its slime, like a woman’s stillborn child, may they never see the sun.

³A man may father a hundred children and live for many years; yet no matter how long he lives, if he is unsatisfied with his prosperity and does not even receive a proper burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he.

⁸And last of all He appeared to me also, as to one of untimely birth.

¹³And I heard a voice from heaven telling me to write, “Blessed are the dead—those who die in the Lord from this moment on.” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “they will rest from their labors, for their deeds will follow them.”

¹⁶Will it go down to the gates of Sheol? Will we go down together into the dust?”

¹The righteous perish, and no one takes it to heart; devout men are taken away, while no one considers that the righteous are taken away from the presence of evil.

²Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest, lying down in death.

¹³If only You would hide me in Sheol and conceal me until Your anger has passed! If only You would appoint a time for me and then remember me!

¹¹Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following the same pattern of disobedience.

⁹There remains, then, a Sabbath rest for the people of God.

⁷He scorns the tumult of the city and never hears the shouts of a driver.

¹⁵So the Israelite foremen went and appealed to Pharaoh: “Why are you treating your servants this way?

¹⁶No straw has been given to your servants, yet we are told, ‘Make bricks!’ Look, your servants are being beaten, but the fault is with your own people.”

³Then the Israelites cried out to the Lord, because Jabin had nine hundred chariots of iron, and he had harshly oppressed the Israelites for twenty years.

⁶That same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people and their foremen:

⁷“You shall no longer supply the people with straw for making bricks. They must go and gather their own straw.

³On the day that the Lord gives you rest from your pain and torment, and from the hard labor into which you were forced,

⁴you will sing this song of contempt against the king of Babylon: How the oppressor has ceased, and how his fury has ended!

⁸As no man has power over the wind to contain it, so no one has authority over his day of death. As no one can be discharged in wartime, so wickedness will not release those who practice it.

⁷before the dust returns to the ground from which it came and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

²³Yes, I know that You will bring me down to death, to the place appointed for all the living.

²both low and high, rich and poor alike.

²²One day the beggar died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. And the rich man also died and was buried.

²³In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham from afar, with Lazarus by his side.

⁵when men fear the heights and dangers of the road, when the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper loses its spring, and the caper berry shrivels—for then man goes to his eternal home and mourners walk the streets.

¹⁸Why did I come out of the womb to see only trouble and sorrow, and to end my days in shame?

¹⁵so that I would prefer strangling and death over my life in this body.

¹⁶I loathe my life! I would not live forever. Leave me alone, for my days are but a breath.

¹⁰In her bitter distress, Hannah prayed to the Lord and wept with many tears.

⁶Give strong drink to one who is perishing, and wine to the bitter in soul.

⁹that God would be willing to crush me, to unleash His hand and cut me off!

²⁷When she reached the man of God at the mountain, she clung to his feet. Gehazi came over to push her away, but the man of God said, “Leave her alone, for her soul is in deep distress, and the Lord has hidden it from me and has not told me.”

⁶In those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die, but death will escape them.

⁴if you seek it like silver and search it out like hidden treasure,

¹⁵If this is how You are going to treat me, please kill me right now—if I have found favor in Your eyes—and let me not see my own wretchedness.”

⁸As the sun was rising, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint and wished to die, saying, “It is better for me to die than to live.”

⁴while he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness. He sat down under a broom tree and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, Lord,” he said. “Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers.”

³And now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

⁸He has blocked my way so I cannot pass; He has veiled my paths with darkness.

⁷He has walled me in so I cannot escape; He has weighed me down with chains.

²⁷Why do you say, O Jacob, and why do you assert, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the Lord, and my claim is ignored by my God”?

¹⁴What He tears down cannot be rebuilt; the man He imprisons cannot be released.

⁹He has barred my ways with cut stones; He has made my paths crooked.

¹²His troops advance together; they construct a ramp against me and encamp around my tent.

⁹For I have eaten ashes like bread and mixed my drink with tears

³My tears have been my food both day and night, while men ask me all day long, “Where is your God?”

⁴These things come to mind as I pour out my soul: how I walked with the multitude, leading the festive procession to the house of God with shouts of joy and praise.

⁵You fed them with the bread of tears and made them drink the full measure of their tears.

⁸I am numb and badly crushed; I groan in anguish of heart.

²⁰so that he detests his bread, and his soul loathes his favorite food.

³When I kept silent, my bones became brittle from my groaning all day long.

⁵And when the days of feasting were over, Job would send for his children to purify them, rising early in the morning to offer burnt offerings for all of them. For Job thought, “Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.” This was Job’s regular practice.

¹⁵Terrors are turned loose against me; they drive away my dignity as by the wind, and my prosperity has passed like a cloud.

²³For calamity from God terrifies me, and His splendor I cannot overpower.

¹⁴then You frighten me with dreams and terrify me with visions,

⁹Will God hear his cry when distress comes upon him?

¹¹For the sake of Your name, O Lord, revive me. In Your righteousness, bring my soul out of trouble.