The Debate
Job's Outburst
1 After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day.
2 And Job spake, and said,
3 Let the day perish wherein I was born,
And the night in which it was said,
There is a man child conceived.
4 Let that day be darkness;
Let not God regard it from above,
Neither let the light shine upon it.
5 Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it;
Let a cloud dwell upon it;
Let the blackness of the day terrify it.
6 As for that night, let darkness seize upon it;
Let it not be joined unto the days of the year,
Let it not come into the number of the months.
7 Lo, let that night be solitary,
Let no joyful voice come therein.
8 Let them curse it that curse the day,
Who are ready to raise up their mourning.
9 Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark;
Let it look for light, but have none;
Neither let it see the dawning of the day:
10 Because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb,
Nor hid sorrow from mine eyes.
11 Why died I not from the womb?
Why did I not give up the ghost
When I came out of the belly?
12 Why did the knees prevent me?
Or why the breasts that I should suck?
13 For now should I have lain still and been quiet,
I should have slept: then had I been at rest,
14 With kings and counsellors of the earth,
Which built desolate places for themselves;
15 Or with princes that had gold,
Who filled their houses with silver:
16 Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been;
As infants which never saw light.
17 There the wicked cease from troubling;
And there the weary be at rest.
18 There the prisoners rest together;
They hear not the voice of the oppressor.
19 The small and great are there;
And the servant is free from his master.
20 Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery,
And life unto the bitter in soul;
21 Which long for death, but it cometh not;
And dig for it more than for hid treasures;
22 Which rejoice exceedingly,
And are glad, when they can find the grave?
23 Why is light given to a man whose way is hid,
And whom God hath hedged in?
24 For my sighing cometh before I eat,
And my roarings are poured out like the waters.
25 For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me,
And that which I was afraid of is come unto me.
26 I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet;
Yet trouble came.
