1After this, Job opened his mouth and cursed his day.

2And Job answered and said,

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

4That day — let it be darkness, let not ¹¹God care for it from above, neither let light shine upon it:

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

6That 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

21Who long for death, and it [cometh] not, and dig for it more than for hidden treasures;

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

23To the man whose way is hidden, and whom ¹²God hath hedged in?

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

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

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