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

² And Job answered and said:

³ Let the day perish in which I was born, and the night which said, A man-child has been conceived.

⁴ Let that day be darkness! Let not God look on it from above, nor let the light shine on it.

⁵ Let darkness and the shadow of death seize upon it. Let a cloud dwell on it. Let all that blackens the day terrify it.

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

⁷ Behold, let that night be barren; let no joyful voice come in it.

⁸ Let those curse it who curse the day, those ready to stir up Leviathan.

⁹ Let the stars of its twilight be dark; let it look for light, but have none, let it wait for eyelids of the dawn.

¹⁰ For it did not shut up the doors of my mother's womb; nor did it hide toil from my eyes.

¹¹ Why did I not die from the womb, come from the womb and expire?

¹² Why did the knees go before me; or why the breasts, that I should suck?

¹³ For now I would have lain down and have been quiet; I would have slept. Then I would have been at rest,

¹⁴ with kings and wise men of the earth, who built ruins for themselves;

¹⁵ or with chiefs; they had gold, they filled their houses with silver;

¹⁶ or as a hidden miscarriage, I would not have been, like infants who never saw light.

¹⁷ There the wicked cease from turmoil, and there the weary are at rest;

¹⁸ The prisoners are at ease together, they hear not the voice of the slave driver;

¹⁹ the small and the great, he is there, and the slave free from his master.

²⁰ Why is light given to the miserable one, and life to him who is bitter in soul;

²¹ who is waiting for death, but it is not; and they dig for it more than for treasures?

²² They are rejoicing to exultation. They are glad when they find the grave.

²³ To a man whose way is hidden, God has made a hedge about him.

²⁴ For my sighing comes before my food; and my groanings are poured out like the waters.

²⁵ For the dreadful thing I dreaded has come on me; and that which I feared has come to me.

²⁶ I am not at ease, nor am I at rest; nor am I quiet; yet turmoil comes.