1 After this Job opened his mouth and cursed his day.
2 And Job answered, and said:
3 Let the day perish in which I was born, and the night in which it was said, A male child has been conceived.
4 Let that day be darkness; let God above not inquire after it, nor the light shine upon it.
5 Let darkness and the shadow of death redeem it; let a cloud settle on it; let the blackness of the day terrify it.
6 As for that night, let darkness take it away; let it not rejoice among the days of the year, let it not come into the number of the months.
7 Lo, let that night be barren! Let no joyful shout come into it!
8 Let those curse it who curse the day, those who are ready to stir up Leviathan.
9 Let the stars of its twilight be dark; let it look for light, but have none, and not see the eyelids of the dawn;
10 because it did not shut up the doors of my mothers womb, nor hide trouble from my eyes.
11 Why did I not die from the womb? Why did I not expire when I came forth from the belly?
12 Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breasts, that I should suck?
13 For now I would have lain down and been quiet, I would have slept; then I would have been at rest
14 with kings and counselors of the earth, who built desolate places for themselves;
15 or with princes who had gold, who filled their houses with silver.
16 Or why was I not concealed like a miscarriage, like infants who never saw the light?
17 There the wicked cease from turmoil, and there the weary are at rest.
18 There the prisoners are at ease together; they do not hear the voice of the oppressor.
19 The small and great are there, and the slave is free from his master.
20 Why is light given to him who is in misery, and life to the bitter of soul,
21 who long for death, but it does not come, and search for it more than hidden treasures;
22 who are joyful with exultation, and are glad when they meet the grave;
23 or to a man whose way is concealed, whom God has covered?
24 For my sighing comes before my food, and my groanings pour out like waters.
25 For the thing I had dreaded with terror has come upon me, and what I had feared has come to me.
26 I am not at ease, nor am I quiet; I have no rest, for turmoil came.