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

2And Job spoke, and said,

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

4Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it.

5Let darkness and the shades of death stain it; let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it.

6As for that night, let darkness seize upon it; let it not be joined to the days of the year, let it not come into the number of the months.

7Lo, let that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein.

8Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning.

9Let the stars of its twilight be dark; let it look for light, but have none; neither let it see the dawning of the day:

10Because it prevented not my birth, nor hid sorrow from my eyes.

11Why died I not from the womb? why did I not expire at the time of my birth?

12Why did the knees receive me? or why the breasts that I should be nursed?

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

14With kings and counselors of the earth, who built desolate places for themselves;

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

16Or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light.

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

18There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor.

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

20Why is light given to him that is in misery, and life to the bitter in soul;

21Who long for death, but it cometh not; and dig for it more than for hid treasures;

22Who rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find the grave?

23Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in?

24For my sighing cometh before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters.

25For the thing which I greatly feared hath come upon me, and that which I dreaded hath come to me.

26I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came.