[001] After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day.
[002] And Job spake, and said,
[003] Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived.
[004] Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it.
[005] Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it.
[006] As for that night, let darkness seize upon it; let it not be joined unto the days of the year, let it not come into the number of the months.
[007] Lo, let that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein.
[008] Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning.
[009] Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark; let it look for light, but have none; neither let it see the dawning of the day:
[010] Because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb, nor hid sorrow from mine eyes.
[011] Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?
[012] Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I should suck?
[013] For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept: then had I been at rest,
[014] With kings and counsellors of the earth, which build desolate places for themselves;
[015] Or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver:
[016] Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light.
[017] There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest.
[018] There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor.
[019] The small and great are there; and the servant is free from his master.
[020] Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul;
[021] Which long for death, but it cometh not; and dig for it more than for hid treasures;
[022] Which rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find the grave?
[023] Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in?
[024] For my sighing cometh before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters.
[025] For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.
[026] I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came.