The Debate
Job's Outburst
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After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day.
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And Job spake, and said,
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Let the day perish wherein I was born,And the night in which it was said,There is a man child 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 darkness and the shadow of death stain it;Let a cloud dwell upon it;Let the blackness of the day terrify it.
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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.
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Lo, let that night be solitary,Let no joyful voice come therein.
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Let them curse it that curse the day,Who are ready to raise up their mourning.
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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:
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Because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb,Nor hid sorrow from mine eyes.
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Why died I not from the womb?Why did I not give up the ghostWhen I came out of the belly?
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Why did the knees prevent me?Or why the breasts that I should suck?
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For now should I have lain still and been quiet,I should have slept: then had I been at rest,
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With kings and counsellors of the earth,Which built desolate places for themselves;
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Or with princes that had gold,Who filled their houses with silver:
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Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been;As infants which never saw light.
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There the wicked cease from troubling;And there the weary be 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 great are there;And the servant is free from his master.
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Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery,And life unto the bitter in soul;
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Which long for death, but it cometh not;And dig for it more than for hid treasures;
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Which 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,And whom God hath hedged in?
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For my sighing cometh before I eat,And my roarings are poured out like the waters.
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For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me,And that which I was afraid of is come unto me.
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I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet;Yet trouble came.