Job 3:3–16

¹⁰¶ Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth! I have neither lent on usury, nor men have lent to me on usury; yet every one of them doth curse me.

¹⁴¶ Cursed be the day wherein I was born: let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed.

¹⁵Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father, saying, A man child is born unto thee; making him very glad.

¹⁶And let that man be as the cities which the Lord overthrew, and repented not: and let him hear the cry in the morning, and the shouting at noontide;

¹⁷Because he slew me not from the womb; or that my mother might have been my grave, and her womb to be always great with me.

¹⁸Wherefore came I forth out of the womb to see labour and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame?

¹⁸Wherefore then hast thou brought me forth out of the womb? Oh that I had given up the ghost, and no eye had seen me!

¹⁹I should have been as though I had not been; I should have been carried from the womb to the grave.

²⁰And when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no small tempest lay on us, all hope that we should be saved was then taken away.

¹⁸Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord! to what end is it for you? the day of the Lord is darkness, and not light.

¹²A land which the Lord thy God careth for: the eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year.

²²And Moses stretched forth his hand toward heaven; and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days:

²³They saw not one another, neither rose any from his place for three days: but all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings.

²A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and a strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations.

⁴⁵Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour.

¹⁰And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain,

²¹Before I go whence I shall not return, even to the land of darkness and the shadow of death;

²²A land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness.

³He setteth an end to darkness, and searcheth out all perfection: the stones of darkness, and the shadow of death.

⁶Neither said they, Where is the Lord that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, that led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought, and of the shadow of death, through a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt?

⁴Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

¹¹And ye came near and stood under the mountain; and the mountain burned with fire unto the midst of heaven, with darkness, clouds, and thick darkness.

¹²As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered; so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day.

²The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.

¹⁶Give glory to the Lord your God, before he cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and, while ye look for light, he turn it into the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness.

²⁸For this shall the earth mourn, and the heavens above be black: because I have spoken it, I have purposed it, and will not repent, neither will I turn back from it.

¹⁰Such as sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, being bound in affliction and iron;

¹⁴He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and brake their bands in sunder.

¹⁶My face is foul with weeping, and on my eyelids is the shadow of death;

¹⁷For the morning is to them even as the shadow of death: if one know them, they are in the terrors of the shadow of death.

¹⁷Have the gates of death been opened unto thee? or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death?

⁷⁹To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.

¹⁶The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up.

⁸Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The Lord is his name:

¹⁰And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day.

³For the day is near, even the day of the Lord is near, a cloudy day; it shall be the time of the heathen.

¹⁸For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest,

²A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and a strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations.

¹⁹Though thou hast sore broken us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death.

²⁰It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there.

²¹But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there.

²²And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces: and her time is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged.

⁸The mirth of tabrets ceaseth, the noise of them that rejoice endeth, the joy of the harp ceaseth.

³⁴Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride: for the land shall be desolate.

²²And the voice of harpers, and musicians, and of pipers, and trumpeters, shall be heard no more at all in thee; and no craftsman, of whatsoever craft he be, shall be found any more in thee; and the sound of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee;

²³And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.

¹CANST thou draw out leviathan with an hook? or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down?

¹⁰None is so fierce that dare stir him up: who then is able to stand before me?

²⁵¶ And Jeremiah lamented for Josiah: and all the singing men and the singing women spake of Josiah in their lamentations to this day, and made them an ordinance in Israel: and, behold, they are written in the lamentations.

¹⁶Therefore the Lord, the God of hosts, the Lord, saith thus; Wailing shall be in all streets; and they shall say in all the highways, Alas! alas! and they shall call the husbandman to mourning, and such as are skilful of lamentation to wailing.

¹⁷¶ Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Consider ye, and call for the mourning women, that they may come; and send for cunning women, that they may come:

¹⁸And let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters.

²⁵When he raiseth up himself, the mighty are afraid: by reason of breakings they purify themselves.

³⁸And he cometh to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and seeth the tumult, and them that wept and wailed greatly.

¹⁷And saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented.

¹⁸By his neesings a light doth shine, and his eyes are like the eyelids of the morning.

¹⁶Give glory to the Lord your God, before he cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and, while ye look for light, he turn it into the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness.

¹⁵We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of health, and behold trouble!

²⁶When I looked for good, then evil came unto me: and when I waited for light, there came darkness.

³¶ If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he.

⁴For he cometh in with vanity, and departeth in darkness, and his name shall be covered with darkness.

⁵Moreover he hath not seen the sun, nor known any thing: this hath more rest than the other.

¹⁸For the Lord had fast closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech, because of Sarah Abraham’s wife.

¹⁷Because he slew me not from the womb; or that my mother might have been my grave, and her womb to be always great with me.

⁵But unto Hannah he gave a worthy portion; for he loved Hannah: but the Lord had shut up her womb.

¹⁰Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh: for childhood and youth are vanity.

³¹¶ And when the Lord saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb: but Rachel was barren.

¹MY soul is weary of my life; I will leave my complaint upon myself; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.

²Even to day is my complaint bitter: my stroke is heavier than my groaning.

²Oh that my grief were throughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together!

³For now it would be heavier than the sand of the sea: therefore my words are swallowed up.

¹⁸Wherefore then hast thou brought me forth out of the womb? Oh that I had given up the ghost, and no eye had seen me!

¹⁹I should have been as though I had not been; I should have been carried from the womb to the grave.

³¶ Hearken unto me, O house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, which are borne by me from the belly, which are carried from the womb:

¹⁸Wherefore then hast thou brought me forth out of the womb? Oh that I had given up the ghost, and no eye had seen me!

¹⁹I should have been as though I had not been; I should have been carried from the womb to the grave.

¹⁴Give them, O Lord: what wilt thou give? give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.

¹⁰¶ Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth! I have neither lent on usury, nor men have lent to me on usury; yet every one of them doth curse me.

¹³For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb.

¹⁴I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.

¹⁵My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

¹⁶Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.

⁹But thou art he that took me out of the womb: thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother’s breasts.

¹⁰I was cast upon thee from the womb: thou art my God from my mother’s belly.

⁸As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away: like the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun.

⁶By thee have I been holden up from the womb: thou art he that took me out of my mother’s bowels: my praise shall be continually of thee.

³And she said, Behold my maid Bilhah, go in unto her; and she shall bear upon my knees, that I may also have children by her.

¹²For thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream: then shall ye suck, ye shall be borne upon her sides, and be dandled upon her knees.

²³And Joseph saw Ephraim’s children of the third generation: the children also of Machir the son of Manasseh were brought up upon Joseph’s knees.

⁴And as for thy nativity, in the day thou wast born thy navel was not cut, neither wast thou washed in water to supple thee; thou wast not salted at all, nor swaddled at all.

⁵None eye pitied thee, to do any of these unto thee, to have compassion upon thee; but thou wast cast out in the open field, to the lothing of thy person, in the day that thou wast born.

¹⁰Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.

¹⁰But man dieth, and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?

¹¹As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up:

¹²So man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.

¹³They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave.

³¶ If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he.

⁴For he cometh in with vanity, and departeth in darkness, and his name shall be covered with darkness.

⁵Moreover he hath not seen the sun, nor known any thing: this hath more rest than the other.

²²A land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness.

¹³If I wait, the grave is mine house: I have made my bed in the darkness.

²⁷Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.

²³One dieth in his full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet.

²¹And why dost thou not pardon my transgression, and take away mine iniquity? for now shall I sleep in the dust; and thou shalt seek me in the morning, but I shall not be.

⁸The eye of him that hath seen me shall see me no more: thine eyes are upon me, and I am not.

⁹As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away: so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more.

¹⁰He shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more.

²⁸And he dwelleth in desolate cities, and in houses which no man inhabiteth, which are ready to become heaps.

¹⁰All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us?

¹¹Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee.

¹²How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!

¹³For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:

¹⁴I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.

¹⁵Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.

¹⁶They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms;

¹⁴Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them; and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; and their beauty shall consume in the grave from their dwelling.

⁴⁸What man is he that liveth, and shall not see death? shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave? Selah.

⁴³And Solomon slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David his father: and Rehoboam his son reigned in his stead.

⁸There is no man that hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit; neither hath he power in the day of death: and there is no discharge in that war; neither shall wickedness deliver those that are given to it.

²⁰When I shall bring thee down with them that descend into the pit, with the people of old time, and shall set thee in the low parts of the earth, in places desolate of old, with them that go down to the pit, that thou be not inhabited; and I shall set glory in the land of the living;

¹⁸Damascus was thy merchant in the multitude of the wares of thy making, for the multitude of all riches; in the wine of Helbon, and white wool.

¹⁹Dan also and Javan going to and fro occupied in thy fairs: bright iron, cassia, and calamus, were in thy market.

²⁰Dedan was thy merchant in precious clothes for chariots.

²¹Arabia, and all the princes of Kedar, they occupied with thee in lambs, and rams, and goats: in these were they thy merchants.

²²The merchants of Sheba and Raamah, they were thy merchants: they occupied in thy fairs with chief of all spices, and with all precious stones, and gold.

²³Haran, and Canneh, and Eden, the merchants of Sheba, Asshur, and Chilmad, were thy merchants.

²⁴These were thy merchants in all sorts of things, in blue clothes, and broidered work, and in chests of rich apparel, bound with cords, and made of cedar, among thy merchandise.

²⁵The ships of Tarshish did sing of thee in thy market: and thou wast replenished, and made very glorious in the midst of the seas.

²⁶¶ Thy rowers have brought thee into great waters: the east wind hath broken thee in the midst of the seas.

²⁷Thy riches, and thy fairs, thy merchandise, thy mariners, and thy pilots, thy calkers, and the occupiers of thy merchandise, and all thy men of war, that are in thee, and in all thy company which is in the midst of thee, shall fall into the midst of the seas in the day of thy ruin.

²⁸The suburbs shall shake at the sound of the cry of thy pilots.

²⁹And all that handle the oar, the mariners, and all the pilots of the sea, shall come down from their ships, they shall stand upon the land;

³⁰And shall cause their voice to be heard against thee, and shall cry bitterly, and shall cast up dust upon their heads, they shall wallow themselves in the ashes:

³¹And they shall make themselves utterly bald for thee, and gird them with sackcloth, and they shall weep for thee with bitterness of heart and bitter wailing.

³²And in their wailing they shall take up a lamentation for thee, and lament over thee, saying, What city is like Tyrus, like the destroyed in the midst of the sea?

⁸¶ Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth!

¹²And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.

¹⁷He leadeth counsellers away spoiled, and maketh the judges fools.

²³For I know that thou wilt bring me to death, and to the house appointed for all living.

⁶They that trust in their wealth, and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches;

⁷None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him:

⁸(For the redemption of their soul is precious, and it ceaseth for ever:)

⁹That he should still live for ever, and not see corruption.

¹⁰For he seeth that wise men die, likewise the fool and the brutish person perish, and leave their wealth to others.

¹⁰So David slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David.

²⁷And the king made silver to be in Jerusalem as stones, and cedars made he to be as the sycomore trees that are in the vale, for abundance.

²⁵Yea, the Almighty shall be thy defence, and thou shalt have plenty of silver.

¹⁸Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord’s wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.

⁷Their land also is full of silver and gold, neither is there any end of their treasures; their land is also full of horses, neither is there any end of their chariots:

²¹He poureth contempt upon princes, and weakeneth the strength of the mighty.

¹⁶Though he heap up silver as the dust, and prepare raiment as the clay;

¹⁷He may prepare it, but the just shall put it on, and the innocent shall divide the silver.

¹⁸And Balaam answered and said unto the servants of Balak, If Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond the word of the Lord my God, to do less or more.

³And Tyrus did build herself a strong hold, and heaped up silver as the dust, and fine gold as the mire of the streets.

⁸As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away: like the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun.

³¶ If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he.

⁸And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.