1 After this Job opened his mouth, and cursed the day of his birth.
2 Job said:
3 “Let the day perish in which I was bornand the night in which it was said, ‘A male child is conceived.’
4 As for that day, let it be darkness;let God above not regard it;and let not light shine upon it.
5 Let darkness and the shadow of death claim it;let a cloud settle on it;let the blackness of the day terrify it.
6 As for that night, let darkness capture it;let it not rejoice among the days of the year;let it not come into the number of the months.
7 Yes, as for that night, let it be barren!Let no joyful cry come into it!
8 Let them curse it who curse any day,those who are prepared to rouse Leviathan.
9 Let its morning stars be dark;let it look for light, but have none;let it not see the rays of dawn,
10 because it did not shut the doors of my mother’s womb,nor hide trouble from my eyes.
11 “Why did I not die at birth?Why did I not expire when I came out of the womb?
12 Why did her knees receive me?And why her breasts that I should nurse?
13 For now I would be lying down and would be at peace;I would have slept; then there would be rest for me,
14 with kings and counselors of the earth,who built ruins for themselves,
15 or with princes who had gold,who filled their houses with silver.
16 Or why was I not hidden like a stillborn child,like infants who never saw light?
17 There the wicked will have stopped causing trouble,and there the exhausted will rest.
18 Captives will relax together;they do not hear the voice of the oppressor.
19 The small and great, they are there,and the servant is free from his master.
20 “Why is light given to the miserable,and life unto the bitter in soul,
21 who look for death, but it is not there;and they search for it more than for hidden treasures;
22 who rejoice exceedingly,and they are glad when they find the grave?
23 And why is light given to a manwhose way is hidden,whom God has hedged in?
24 For my sighing comes before I eat,and my groaning pours forth like the waters.
25 For the thing which I greatly feared has happened to me,and that which I dreaded has come to me.
26 I am not at peace; I have no quiet,I cannot rest, and turmoil has come.”