Dual PanelJob's complaint to God
1AFTER this Job broke his silence and cursed the day of his birth:
2(3:1)
3Perish the day when I was born, and the night which said, “A boy is conceived”!
4May that day turn to darkness; may God above not look for it, nor light of dawn shine on it.
5May gloom and deep darkness claim it again; may cloud smother that day, blackness eclipse its sun.
6May blind darkness swallow up that night! May it not be counted among the days of the year or reckoned in the cycle of the months.
7May that night be barren for ever, may no cry of joy be heard in it.
8Let it be cursed by those whose spells bind the sea monster, who have the skill to tame Leviathan.
9May no star shine out in its twilight; may it wait for a dawn that never breaks, and never see the eyelids of the morning,
10because it did not shut the doors of the womb that bore me and keep trouble away from my sight.
11Why was I not stillborn, why did I not perish when I came from the womb?
12Why was I ever laid on my mother's knees or put to suck at her breasts?
13For now I should be lying in the quiet grave, asleep in death, at rest
14with kings and their earthly counsellors who built for themselves cities now laid waste,
15or with princes rich in gold whose houses were replete with silver.
16Or why was I not concealed like an untimely birth, like an infant who never saw the light?
17There the wicked chafe no more, there the tired labourer takes his ease;
18the captive too finds peace there, no slave-driver's voice reaches him;
19high and low alike are there, even the slave, free from his master.
20Why should the sufferer be born to see the light? Why is life given to those who find it so bitter?
21They long for death but it does not come, they seek it more eagerly than hidden treasure.
22They are glad when they reach the grave; when they come to the tomb they exult.
23Why should a man be born to wander blindly, hedged about by God on every side?
24Sighing is for me all my food; groans pour from me in a torrent.
25Every terror that haunted me has caught up with me; what I dreaded has overtaken me.
26There is no peace of mind, no quiet for me; trouble comes, and I have no rest.