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Jeremiah’s Complaint

10 Woe to me, my mother, that you gave me birth!
    a man of strife and contention to all the land!
I neither borrow nor lend,
    yet everyone curses me.(A)

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II. First Cycle of Speeches

Chapter 3

Job’s Complaint. After this, Job opened his mouth and cursed his day.[a] Job spoke out and said:

Perish the day on which I was born,(A)
    the night when they said, “The child is a boy!”
May that day be darkness:
    may God[b] above not care for it,
    may light not shine upon it!
May darkness and gloom claim it,
    clouds settle upon it,
    blackness of day[c] affright it!
May obscurity seize that night;
    may it not be counted among the days of the year,
    nor enter into the number of the months!
May that night be barren;
    let no joyful outcry greet it!
Let them curse it who curse the Sea,
    those skilled at disturbing Leviathan![d]
May the stars of its twilight be darkened;
    may it look for daylight, but have none,
    nor gaze on the eyes of the dawn,
10 Because it did not keep shut the doors of the womb
    to shield my eyes from trouble!

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Footnotes

  1. 3:1 His day: that is, the day of his birth.
  2. 3:4 God: in Heb. ’Eloah, another name for the divinity, used frequently in Job.
  3. 3:5 Blackness of day: that is, an eclipse.
  4. 3:8 Leviathan: a mythological sea monster symbolizing primeval chaos. It is parallel to Sea, which was the opponent of Baal in the Ugaritic legends. Cf. 9:13; 26:13; 40:25–41:26; Ps 74:13–14; 104:26; Is 27:1.

18 Why then did you bring me forth from the womb?(A)
    I should have died and no eye have seen me.

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