1

After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day.

2

And Job answered and said:

3

Let the day perish wherein I was born, And the night which said, There is a man-child conceived.

4

Let that day be darkness Let not God from above seek for it, Neither let the light shine upon it.

5

Let darkness and the shadow of death claim it for their own Let a cloud dwell upon it Let all that maketh black the day terrify it.

6

As 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.

7

Lo, let that night be barren Let no joyful voice come therein.

8

Let them curse it that curse the day, Who are ready to rouse up leviathan.

9

Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark: Let it look for light, but have none Neither let it behold the eyelids of the morning:

10

Because it shut not up the doors of my [mother's] womb, Nor hid trouble from mine eyes.

11

Why died I not from the womb? Why did I not give up the ghost when my mother bare me?

12

Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breast, that I should suck?

13

For now should I have lain down and been quiet I should have slept then had I been at rest,

14

With kings and counsellors of the earth, Who built up waste places for themselves

15

Or with princes that had gold, Who filled their houses with silver:

16

Or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been, As infants that never saw light.

17

There the wicked cease from troubling And there the weary are at rest.

18

There the prisoners are at ease together They hear not the voice of the taskmaster.

19

The small and the great are there: And the servant is free from his master.

20

Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, And life unto the bitter in soul

21

Who long for death, but it cometh not, And dig for it more than for hid treasures

22

Who rejoice exceedingly, And are glad, when they can find the grave?

23

[Why is light given] to a man whose way is hid, And whom God hath hedged in?

24

For my sighing cometh before I eat, And my groanings are poured out like water.

25

For the thing which I fear cometh upon me, And that which I am afraid of cometh unto me.

26

I am not at ease, neither am I quiet, neither have I rest But trouble cometh.