• Job Deplores His Birth

  • 1 After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth.
  • 2 And Job spoke, and said:
  • 3 “May the day perish on which I was born, And the night in which it was said, ‘A male child is conceived.’
  • 4 May that day be darkness; May God above not seek it, Nor the light shine upon it.
  • 5 May darkness and the shadow of death claim it; May a cloud settle on it; May the blackness of the day terrify it.
  • 6 As for that night, may darkness seize it; May it not rejoice among the days of the year, May it not come into the number of the months.
  • 7 Oh, may that night be barren! May no joyful shout come into it!
  • 8 May those curse it who curse the day, Those who are ready to arouse Leviathan.
  • 9 May the stars of its morning be dark; May it look for light, but have none, And not see the dawning of the day;
  • 10 Because it did not shut up the doors of my mother’s womb, Nor hide sorrow from my eyes.
  • 11 “Why did I not die at birth? Why did I not perish when I came from the womb?
  • 12 Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breasts, that I should nurse?
  • 13 For now I would have lain still and been quiet, I would have been asleep; Then I would have been at rest
  • 14 With kings and counselors of the earth, Who built ruins for themselves,
  • 15 Or with princes who had gold, Who filled their houses with silver;
  • 16 Or why was I not hidden like a stillborn child, Like infants who never saw light?
  • 17 There the wicked cease from troubling, And there the weary are at rest.
  • 18 There the prisoners rest together; They do not hear the voice of the oppressor.
  • 19 The small and great are there, And the servant is free from his master.
  • 20 “Why is light given to him who is in misery, And life to the bitter of soul,
  • 21 Who long for death, but it does not come, And search for it more than hidden treasures;
  • 22 Who rejoice exceedingly, And are glad when they can find the grave?
  • 23 Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden, And whom God has hedged in?
  • 24 For my sighing comes before I eat, And my groanings pour out like water.
  • 25 For the thing I greatly feared has come upon me, And what I dreaded has happened to me.
  • 26 I am not at ease, nor am I quiet; I have no rest, for trouble comes.”