1 After this Job opened his mouth, and cursed his day. 2 And Job spoke, and said,

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

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

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

6 As 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

18 There the prisoners rest together; they hear not 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 that is in misery, and life to the bitter in soul;

21 Who long for death, but it cometh not; and dig for it more than for hid 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 hid, and whom God hath hedged in?

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

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

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