I

THE CURSE

JOB

Let the day perish wherein I was born;

And the night which said, There is a man child conceived!

Let that day be darkness;

Let not God regard it from above,
Neither let the light shine upon it!

Let darkness and the shadow of death claim it for

their own;

Let a cloud dwell upon it;

Let all that maketh black the day terrify it!

As for that night, let thick darkness seize upon it;
Let it not rejoice among the days of the year;
Let it not come into the number of the months!
Lo, let that night be barren;

Let no joyful voice come therein!

Let them curse it that curse the day,

Who are ready to rouse up leviathan!

Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark!

Let it look for light, but have none;

Neither let it behold the eyelids of the morning:

Because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb, Nor hid trouble from mine eyes!

2

Why died I not from the womb?

Why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?

Why did the knees receive me?

Or why the breasts, that I should suck?

For now should I have lien down and been quiet;
I should have slept; then had I been at rest,
With kings and counsellors of the earth,
Which built solitary piles for themselves;
Or with princes that had gold,

Who filled their houses with silver;

Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been;
As infants which never saw light.

There the wicked cease from troubling;
And there the weary be at rest.

There the prisoners are at ease together;
They hear not the voice of the taskmaster.
The small and great are there;

And the servant is free from his master.

Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery,
And life unto the bitter in soul?

Which long for death, but it cometh not;
And dig for it more than for hid treasures;
Which rejoice exceedingly,

And are glad when they can find the grave.
Why is light given to a man whose way is hid,
And whom God hath hedged in?

For my sighing cometh before I eat,

And my roarings are poured out like water.
For the thing which I fear cometh upon me,
And that which I am afraid of cometh unto me.
I am not at ease, neither am I quiet,

Neither have I rest: but trouble cometh!

17

II

THE DEBATE

ELIPHAZ

3

If one assay to commune with thee, wilt thou be grieved?
But who can withhold himself from speaking?
Behold, thou hast instructed many,

And thou hast strengthened the weak hands.
Thy words have upholden him that was falling,
And thou hast confirmed the feeble knees.

But now it is come unto thee, and thou faintest ;

It toucheth thee, and thou art troubled.

Is not thy fear of God thy confidence,

And thy hope the integrity of thy ways?
Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent?
Or where were the upright cut off?

According as I have seen, they that plow iniquity,
And sow trouble, reap the same.

By the breath of God they perish,

And by the blast of his anger are they consumed.