1 Afterward Job opened his mouth and cursed his day.
2 Thus Job spoke up and said,
3 “Let the day perish on which I was born, and the night that said, ‘A man-child is conceived.’
4 Let that day become darkness; may God not seek it from above, nor may daylight shine on it.
5 Let darkness and deep shadow claim it; let clouds settle on it; let them terrify it with the blackness of day.
6 Let darkness seize that night; let it not rejoice among the days of the year; let it not enter among the number of the months.
7 Look, let that night become barren; let a joyful song not enter it.
8 Let those who curse the day curse it, those who are skilled at rousing Leviathan.
9 Let the stars of its dawn be dark; let it hope for light but there be none, and let it not see the eyelids of dawn
10 because it did not shut the doors of my mother’s womb, nor did it hide trouble from my eyes.
11 “Why did I not die at birth? Why did I not come forth from the womb and expire?
12 Why did the knees receive me and the breasts, that I could suck?
13 For now I would lie down, and I would be at peace; I would be asleep; then I would be at rest
14 with kings and counselors of the earth, who rebuild ruins for themselves,
15 or with high officials who have gold, who fill up their houses with silver.
16 Or why was I not hidden like a miscarriage, like infants who did not see the light?
17 There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary are at rest;
18 the prisoners are at ease together; they do not hear the oppressor’s voice.
19 The small and the great are there, and the slave is free from his masters.
20 “Why does he give light to one in misery and life to those bitter of soul,
21 who wait for death, but it does not come, and search for it more than for treasures,
22 who rejoice exceedingly, and they are glad when they find the grave?
23 Why does he give light to a man whose way is hidden, and God has fenced him in all around?
24 For my sighing comes before my bread, and my groanings gush forth like water
25 because the dread that I feel has come upon me, and what I feared befalls me.
26 I am not at ease, and I am not at peace, and I do not have rest, thus turmoil has come.”