Job 3 Bible in Basic English
Audio: World English Bible (WEB), read by Winfred W. Henson · About the recordings
1 Then, opening his mouth, and cursing the day of his birth,
1 After this Job opened his mouth, and cursed the day of his birth.
2 Job made answer and said,
2 Job answered:
3 Let destruction take the day of my birth, and the night on which it was said, A man child has come into the world.
3 “Let the day perish in which I was born, the night which said, ‘There is a boy conceived.’
4 That day — let it be dark; let not God take note of it from on high, and let not the light be shining on it;
4 Let that day be darkness. Don’t let God from above seek for it, neither let the light shine on it.
5 Let the dark and the black night take it for themselves; let it be covered with a cloud; let the dark shades of day send fear on it.
5 Let darkness and the shadow of death claim it for their own. Let a cloud dwell on it. Let all that makes the day black terrify it.
6 That night — let the thick dark take it; let it not have joy among the days of the year; let it not come into the number of the months.
6 As for that night, let thick darkness seize on it. Let it not rejoice among the days of the year. Let it not come into the number of the months.
7 As for that night, let it have no fruit; let no voice of joy be sounded in it;
7 Behold, let that night be barren. Let no joyful voice come therein.
8 Let it be cursed by those who put a curse on the day; who are ready to make Leviathan awake.
8 Let them curse it who curse the day, who are ready to rouse up leviathan.
9 Let its morning stars be dark; let it be looking for light, but may it not have any; let it not see the eyes of the dawn.
9 Let the stars of its twilight be dark. Let it look for light, but have none, neither let it see the eyelids of the morning,
10 Because it did not keep the doors of my mother's body shut, so that trouble might be veiled from my eyes.
10 because it didn’t shut up the doors of my mother’s womb, nor did it hide trouble from my eyes.
11 Why did death not take me when I came out of my mother's body, why did I not, when I came out, give up my last breath?
11 “Why didn’t I die from the womb? Why didn’t I give up the spirit when my mother bore me?
12 Why did the knees take me, or why the breasts that they might give me milk?
12 Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breast, that I should nurse?
13 For then I might have gone to my rest in quiet, and in sleep have been in peace,
13 For now I should have lain down and been quiet. I should have slept, then I would have been at rest,
14 With kings and the wise ones of the earth, who put up great houses for themselves;
14 with kings and counselors of the earth, who built up waste places for themselves;
15 Or with rulers who had gold, and whose houses were full of silver;
15 or with princes who had gold, who filled their houses with silver;
16 Or as a child dead at birth I might never have come into existence; like young children who have not seen the light.
16 or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been, as infants who never saw light.
17 There the passions of the evil are over, and those whose strength has come to an end have rest.
17 There the wicked cease from troubling. There the weary are at rest.
18 There the prisoners are at peace together; the voice of the overseer comes not again to their ears.
18 There the prisoners are at ease together. They don’t hear the voice of the taskmaster.
19 The small and the great are there, and the servant is free from his master.
19 The small and the great are there. The servant is free from his master.
20 Why does he give light to him who is in trouble, and life to the bitter in soul;
20 “Why is light given to him who is in misery, life to the bitter in soul,
21 To those whose desire is for death, but it comes not; who are searching for it more than for secret wealth;
21 who long for death, but it doesn’t come; and dig for it more than for hidden treasures,
22 Who are glad with great joy, and full of delight when they come to their last resting-place;
22 who rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find the grave?
23 To a man whose way is veiled, and who is shut in by God?
23 Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden, whom God has hedged in?
24 In place of my food I have grief, and cries of sorrow come from me like water.
24 For my sighing comes before I eat. My groanings are poured out like water.
25 For I have a fear and it comes on me, and my heart is greatly troubled.
25 For the thing which I fear comes on me, that which I am afraid of comes to me.
26 I have no peace, no quiet, and no rest; nothing but pain comes on me.
26 I am not at ease, neither am I quiet, neither do I have rest; but trouble comes.”
Cross references (23)
Related passages for each verse, from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge as collected and ranked by readers at OpenBible.info.
- 1 Jeremiah 20:14–15; Psalm 106:33; Psalm 39:2–3; Job 2:9–10; Job 3:3
- 3 Jeremiah 20:14–18; Jeremiah 15:10; Job 10:18–19
- 4 Matthew 27:45; Amos 5:18; Revelation 16:10; Deuteronomy 11:12; Joel 2:2
- 5 Job 10:21–22; Job 28:3; Jeremiah 2:6; Psalm 23:4; Psalm 107:14
- 7 Isaiah 13:20–22; Jeremiah 7:34; Revelation 18:22–23; Isaiah 24:8
- 8 Job 41:1; Job 41:10; 2 Chronicles 35:25; Jeremiah 9:17–18; Job 41:25
- 9 Job 41:18; Jeremiah 8:15; Jeremiah 13:16; Job 30:26
- 10 Ecclesiastes 6:3–5; Genesis 20:18; Jeremiah 20:17; 1 Samuel 1:5; Genesis 29:31
- 11 Isaiah 46:3; Job 10:18–19; Hosea 9:14; Jeremiah 15:10; Psalm 139:13–16
- 12 Genesis 30:3; Isaiah 66:12; Genesis 50:23; Ezekiel 16:4–5
- 13 Ecclesiastes 9:10; Job 14:10–12; Job 21:13; Job 7:21; Ecclesiastes 6:3–5
- 14 Job 15:28; Psalm 89:48; Isaiah 14:10–16; Psalm 49:14; Psalm 49:6–10
- 15 1 Kings 10:27; Job 22:25; Zephaniah 1:18; Numbers 22:18; Job 27:16–17
- 16 Psalm 58:8; Ecclesiastes 6:3; 1 Corinthians 15:8
- 17 Revelation 14:13; Job 17:16; Isaiah 57:1–2; Job 14:13; Hebrews 4:11
- 18 Job 39:7; Exodus 5:15–19; Judges 4:3; Exodus 5:6–8; Isaiah 14:3–4
- 19 Ecclesiastes 8:8; Ecclesiastes 12:7; Job 30:23; Psalm 49:2; Luke 16:22–23
- 20 Jeremiah 20:18; Job 7:15–16; 1 Samuel 1:10; Proverbs 31:6; Job 6:9
- 21 Revelation 9:6; Proverbs 2:4; Numbers 11:15; Jonah 4:8; 1 Kings 19:4
- 23 Job 19:8; Lamentations 3:7; Isaiah 40:27; Job 12:14; Lamentations 3:9
- 24 Psalm 102:9; Psalm 42:3–4; Psalm 80:5; Psalm 38:8; Job 33:20
- 25 Job 1:5; Job 30:15; Job 31:23
- 26 Job 7:14; Job 27:9; Psalm 143:11
Cross references: OpenBible.info (CC BY), drawn mainly from the public-domain Treasury of Scripture Knowledge. · Sources & licences
What the Fathers said
Passages from the Church Fathers that expound or quote this chapter, verbatim from the public-domain Schaff edition (19th-century English translations).
How these were chosen
“Commentary” is the opening of a homily or exposition on this chapter (John Chrysostom’s homilies, Augustine’s tractates, sermons and expositions of the Psalms). “Quotes” are sentences where the edition’s own footnotes identify a quotation of a verse here, kept only when the wording matches the verse. Only works whose authorship is not in doubt are used. Psalms follow the Hebrew/English numbering (Augustine numbers them as the Septuagint does: his Psalm 50 is Psalm 51 here).
And this he declared, when he said, "For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me; and that which I was afraid of is come unto me." And again, "But I wept for every helpless man, and groaned when I saw a man in distress." So because of this, nothing of what happened confounded him, none of those …
Read in context · Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 1, vol. 10 (1888)