1After this Job opened his mouth, and cursed his day.
2And Job answered and said:
3Let the day perish on which I was born, And the night which said, A man-child is conceived.
4Let that day be darkness; Let not God from above seek for it, Neither let the light shine on it.
5Let darkness and the shadow of death claim it for their own; Let a cloud dwell on it; Let all that makes black the day terrify it.
6As 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.
7Look, let that night be barren; Let no joyful voice come into it.
8Let those curse it who curse the day, Who are ready to rouse up leviathan.
9Let the stars of its twilight be dark: Let it look for light, but have none; Neither let it behold the eyelids of the morning:
10Because it did not shut up the doors of my mother’s womb, Nor hide trouble from my eyes.
11Why did I not die from the womb? Why did I not give up the ghost when my mother bore me?
12Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breasts, that I should suck?
13For now I would have lain down and been quiet; I would have slept; then I would have been at rest,
14With kings and counselors of the earth, Who built up waste places for themselves;
15Or with princes who had gold, Who filled their houses with silver:
16Or as a hidden untimely birth I would not have been, As infants who never saw light.
17There the wicked cease from troubling; And there the weary are at rest.
18There the prisoners are at ease together; They do not hear the voice of the taskmaster.
19The small and the great are there: And the servant is free from his master.
20Why is light given to him who is in misery, And life to the bitter in soul;
21Who long for death, but it does not come, And dig for it more than for hidden treasures;
22Who rejoice exceedingly, And are glad, when they can find the grave?
23Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden, And whom God has hedged in?
24For my sighing comes before I eat, And my groanings are poured out like water.
25For the thing which I fear comes upon me, And that which I am afraid of comes to me.
26I am not at ease, neither am I quiet, neither have I rest; But trouble comes.