Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes.

His wife said to him, “Are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die!”

When Job’s three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him.

When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads.

Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was.

Job Speaks

After this, Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth.

“May the day of my birth perish, and the night that said, ‘A boy is conceived!’

That day—may it turn to darkness; may God above not care about it; may no light shine on it.

May gloom and utter darkness claim it once more; may a cloud settle over it; may blackness overwhelm it.

That night—may thick darkness seize it; may it not be included among the days of the year nor be entered in any of the months.

May that night be barren; may no shout of joy be heard in it.

May those who curse days curse that day, those who are ready to rouse Leviathan.

May its morning stars become dark; may it wait for daylight in vain and not see the first rays of dawn,

for it did not shut the doors of the womb on me to hide trouble from my eyes.

“Why did I not perish at birth, and die as I came from the womb?

Why were there knees to receive me and breasts that I might be nursed?

For now I would be lying down in peace; I would be asleep and at rest

with kings and rulers of the earth, who built for themselves places now lying in ruins,

Or why was I not hidden away in the ground like a stillborn child, like an infant who never saw the light of day?

There the wicked cease from turmoil, and there the weary are at rest.

Captives also enjoy their ease; they no longer hear the slave driver’s shout.

“Why is light given to those in misery, and life to the bitter of soul,

to those who long for death that does not come, who search for it more than for hidden treasure,

For sighing has become my daily food; my groans pour out like water.

What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me.