1 After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day.
2 And Job spoke, and said:
3 Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night wherein it was said: 'A man-child is brought forth.'
4 Let that day be darkness; let not G-d inquire after it from above, 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 desolate; 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 perish at birth?
12 Why did the knees receive me? And wherefore the breasts, that I should suck?
13 For now should I have lain still 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 great are there alike; and the servant is free from his master.
20 Wherewith 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 unto exultation, and are glad, when they can find the grave?--
23 To a man whose way is hid, and whom G-d hath hedged in?
24 For my sighing cometh instead of my food, and my roarings are poured out like water.
25 For the thing which I did fear is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of hath overtaken me.
26 I was not at ease, neither was I quiet, neither had I rest; but trouble came.