¹After this Job opened his mouth , and cursed the day of his birth.

²Job answered :

³“Let the day perish in which I was born ,

the night which said, ‘There is a boy conceived.’

⁴Let that day be darkness .

Don’t let 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 the day black terrify it .

⁶As for that night , let thick darkness seize on it .

Let it not rejoice amongst the days of the year .

Let it not come into the number of the months .

⁷Behold , let that night be barren .

Let no joyful voice come therein.

⁸Let them 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 see the eyelids of the morning ,

¹⁰because it didn’t shut up the doors of my mother’s womb,

nor did it hide trouble from my eyes .

¹¹“Why didn’t I die from the womb ?

Why didn’t I give up the spirit when my mother bore me ?

¹²Why did the knees receive me ?

Or why the breast , that I should nurse ?

¹³For now I should have lain down and been quiet .

I should have slept , then I would have been at rest ,

¹⁴with kings and counsellors 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 had not been ,

as infants who never saw light.

¹⁷There the wicked cease from troubling .

There the weary are at rest .

¹⁸There the prisoners are at ease together .

They don’t hear the voice of the taskmaster .

¹⁹The small and the great are there .

The servant is free from his master.

²⁰“Why is light given to him who is in misery ,

life to the bitter in soul ,

²¹who long for death , but it doesn’t 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 ,

whom God has hedged in ?

²⁴For my sighing comes before I eat .

My groanings are poured out like water .

²⁵For the thing which I fear comes on me ,

that which I am afraid of comes to me .

²⁶I am not at ease , neither am I quiet , neither do I have rest ;

but trouble comes.”