Job 2:11-3:26

English Standard Version

Job's Three Friends

¹¹Now when Job's three ^(A)friends heard of all this evil that had come upon him, they came each from his own place, Eliphaz ^(B)the Temanite, Bildad ^(C)the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They made an appointment together to come to ^(D)show him sympathy and comfort him. ¹²And when they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him. And they raised their voices and wept, and they ^(E)tore their robes and sprinkled ^(F)dust on their heads toward heaven. ¹³And they sat with him on the ground ^(G)seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.

Job Laments His Birth

3 After this Job ^(H)opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. ²And Job said:

³^(I)“Let the day perish on which I was born,
    and the night that said,
    ‘A man is conceived.’
⁴Let that day be darkness!
    May God above not seek it,
    nor light shine upon it.
⁵Let gloom and ^(J)deep darkness claim it.
    Let clouds dwell upon it;
    let the blackness of the day terrify it.
⁶That night—let thick darkness seize it!
    Let it not rejoice among the days of the year;
    let it not come into the number of the months.
⁷Behold, let that night be barren;
    let no joyful cry enter it.
⁸Let those curse it who curse the day,
    who are ready to rouse up ^(K)Leviathan.
⁹Let the stars of its dawn be dark;
    let it hope for light, but have none,
    nor see ^(L)the eyelids of the morning,
¹⁰because it did not shut the doors of my mother's womb,
    nor hide trouble from my eyes.

¹¹“Why ^(M)did I not die at birth,
    come out from the womb and expire?
¹²Why did ^(N)the knees receive me?
    Or why the breasts, that I should nurse?
¹³For then I would have lain down and been quiet;
    I would have slept; then I would have been at rest,
¹⁴with kings and counselors of the earth
    who ^(O)rebuilt ruins for themselves,
¹⁵or with princes who had gold,
    who filled their houses with silver.
¹⁶Or why was I not as a hidden ^(P)stillborn child,
    as infants who never see the light?
¹⁷There the wicked cease from troubling,
    and there the weary are at ^(Q)rest.
¹⁸There the prisoners are at ease together;
    they hear not the voice of ^(R)the taskmaster.
¹⁹The small and the great are there,
    and the slave is free from his master.

²⁰“Why is light given to him who is in misery,
    and life to ^(S)the bitter in soul,
²¹who ^(T)long for death, but it comes not,
    and dig for it more than for ^(U)hidden treasures,
²²who rejoice exceedingly
    and are glad when they find the grave?
²³Why is light given to a man whose ^(V)way is hidden,
    whom God has ^(W)hedged in?
²⁴For my sighing comes ^(X)instead of^[a] my bread,
    and my ^(Y)groanings are poured out like water.
²⁵^(Z)For the thing that I fear comes upon me,
    and what I dread befalls me.
²⁶I am not at ease, nor am I quiet;
    I have no rest, but trouble comes.”