1 A fter this, Job opened his mouth and cursed his day.

2 A nd Job answered and said,

3 L et the day perish in which I was born, and the night that said, There is a man child conceived.

4 T hat day—let it be darkness, let not +God care for it from above, neither let light shine upon it:

5 L et darkness and the shadow of death claim it; let clouds dwell upon it; let darkeners of the day terrify it.

6 T hat night—let gloom seize upon it; let it not rejoice among the days of the year; let it not come into the number of the months.

7 B ehold, let that night be barren; let no joyful sound come therein;

8 L et them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to rouse Leviathan;

9 L et the stars of its twilight be dark; let it wait for light, and have none, neither let it see the eyelids of the dawn:

10 B ecause it shut not up the doors of the womb that bore me, and hid not trouble from mine eyes.

11 W herefore did I not die from the womb,—come forth from the belly and expire?

12 W hy did the knees meet me? and wherefore the breasts, that I should suck?

13 F or now should I have lain down and been quiet; I should have slept: then had I been at rest,

14 W ith kings and counsellors of the earth, who build desolate places for themselves,

15 O r with princes who had gold, who filled their houses with silver;

16 O r as a hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants that have not seen the light.

17 T here the wicked cease from troubling; and there the wearied are at rest.

18 T he prisoners together are at ease; they hear not the voice of the taskmaster.

19 T he small and great are there, and the bondman freed from his master.

20 W herefore is light given to him that is in trouble, and life to those bitter of soul,

21 W ho long for death, and it not, and dig for it more than for hidden treasures;

22 W ho rejoice even exultingly and are glad when they find the grave?—

23 T o the man whose way is hidden, and whom +God hath hedged in?

24 F or my sighing cometh before my bread, and my groanings are poured out like the waters.

25 F or I feared a fear, and it hath come upon me, and that which I dreaded hath come to me.

26 I was not in safety, neither had I quietness, neither was I at rest, and trouble came.