# Job 3 (New King James Version)
Job Deplores His Birth

##### Chapter 3
###### 1 After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his _birth._  
###### 2 And Job spoke, and said:

###### 3 "May the day perish on which I was born,  
And the night _in which_ it was said,  
'A male child is conceived.'  

###### 4 May that day be darkness;  
May God above not seek it,  
Nor the light shine upon it.  

###### 5 May darkness and the shadow of death claim it;  
May a cloud settle on it;  
May the blackness of the day terrify it.  

###### 6 _As for_ that night, may darkness seize it;  
May it not rejoice among the days of the year,  
May it not come into the number of the months.  

###### 7 Oh, may that night be barren!  
May no joyful shout come into it!  

###### 8 May those curse it who curse the day,  
Those who are ready to arouse Leviathan.  

###### 9 May the stars of its morning be dark;  
May it look for light, but _have_ none,  
And not see the dawning of the day;  

###### 10 Because it did not shut up the doors of my _mother's_ womb,  
Nor hide sorrow from my eyes.

###### 11 "Why did I not die at birth?  
_Why_ did I _not_ perish when I came from the womb?  

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

###### 13 For now I would have lain still and been quiet,  
I would have been asleep;  
Then I would have been at rest  

###### 14 With kings and counselors of the earth,  
Who built ruins for themselves,  

###### 15 Or with princes who had gold,  
Who filled their houses _with_ silver;  

###### 16 Or _why_ was I not hidden like a stillborn child,  
Like infants who never saw light?  

###### 17 There the wicked cease _from_ troubling,  
And there the weary are at rest.  

###### 18 _There_ the prisoners rest together;  
They do not hear the voice of the oppressor.  

###### 19 The small and great are there,  
And the servant _is_ free from his master.

###### 20 "Why is light given to him who is in misery,  
And life to the bitter of soul,  

###### 21 Who long for death, but it does not _come,_  
And search for it more than hidden treasures;  

###### 22 Who rejoice exceedingly,  
_And_ are glad when they can find the grave?  

###### 23 _Why is light given_ to a man whose way is hidden,  
And whom God has hedged in?  

###### 24 For my sighing comes before I eat,  
And my groanings pour out like water.  

###### 25 For the thing I greatly feared has come upon me,  
And what I dreaded has happened to me.  

###### 26 I am not at ease, nor am I quiet;  
I have no rest, for trouble comes."