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- ¶ AFTER this Job opened his mouth, and cursed the day wherein he was born.
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- Then Job spoke and said,
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- Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, A male child is conceived.
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- Let that day be darkness;
let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it.
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- Let the darkness and the shadow of death cover it;
let a cloud overshadow it; let those whose days are bitter be terrified by it.
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- As for that night, let thick darkness cover it;
let that day not be reckoned in the number of the days of the year, let it not come into the number of the months.
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- Lo, let that night be desolate, let no voice of praise come therein.
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- Let them curse it who curse the day, who are ready to stir up Leviathan.
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- Let the stars of twilight thereof be dark;
let the people wait for light, but receive none; neither let them see the dawning of the day;
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- Because it did not shut the doors of my mother’s womb, nor hide trouble from my eyes.
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- ¶ Why did I not die from the womb?
Why did I come forth at birth?
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- Why was I reared at my mother’s knee?
Why did I suck the breasts?
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- For now I should have been laid in the grave and been quiet, I should have slept;
then I should have been at rest,
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- With kings and governors of the earth who built desolate places for themselves;
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- Or with princes who had gold, who filled their houses with silver;
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- Or like a hidden untimely birth, as if I had not been;
like infants that never saw the light.
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- There the wicked cease from troubling;
and there the weary are at rest.
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- There the prisoners rest together;
they hear not the voice of the oppressor.
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- The small and the great are there;
and the servant is free from his master.
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- ¶ Why is light given to him who is in trouble, and life to the bitter in soul,
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- Who long for death, but it comes not, and seek it as one seeks a hidden treasure;
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- Who rejoice exceedingly, and are glad when they can find the grave?
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- Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, whom God has hedged in?
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- For my sighing comes before I eat, and my moanings are poured out like water.
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- For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of has befallen me.
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- I am not at ease, neither am I calm, nor am I at rest;
and yet misfortune came.
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