1After this, Job opened his mouth and cursed the day he was born.

2He said,

3“May the day on which I was born perish,
the night that said, 'A boy has been conceived.'

4May that day be dark;
may not God from above call it to mind,
neither may the sun shine on it.

5May darkness and the shadow of death claim it for their own.
May a cloud live over it;
may everything that makes the day black truly terrify it.

6As for that night, may thick darkness seize it.
May it not rejoice among the days of the year;
may it not come into the number of the months.

7See, may that night be barren;
may no joyful voice come into it.

8May they curse that day,
those who know how to wake up Leviathan.

9May the stars of that day's dawn be dark.
May that day look for light, but find none;
neither may it see the eyelids of the dawn,

10because it did not shut up the doors of my mother's womb,
and because it did not hide trouble from my eyes.

11Why did I not die when I came out from the womb?
Why did I not give up my spirit when my mother bore me?

12Why did her knees welcome me?
Why did her breasts receive me so that I should suck?

13For now I would have been lying down quietly.
I would have slept and been at rest

14with kings and counselors of the earth,
who built up tombs for themselves that are now in ruins.

15Or I would have been lying with princes who once had gold,
who had filled their houses with silver.

16Or perhaps I would have been stillborn,
like infants that never see the light.

17There the wicked cease from trouble;
there the weary are at rest.

18There the prisoners are at ease together;
they do not hear the voice of the slave driver.

19Both small and great people are there;
the servant is free from his master there.

20Why is light given to him who is in misery?
Why is life given to the one who is bitter in soul,

21to one who longs for death without it coming;
to one who digs for death more than for hidden treasure?

22Why is light given to one who rejoices very much
and is glad when he finds the grave?

23Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden,
a man whom God has hedged in?

24For my sighing happens instead of eating;
my groaning is poured out like water.

25For the thing that I feared has come on me;
what I was afraid of has come to me.

26I am not at ease, I am not quiet, and I have no rest;
trouble comes instead.”