[1]After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day.[2]And Job spoke, and said:[3]Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night wherein it was said: 'A man-child is brought forth.'[4]Let that day be darkness; let not God inquire after it from above, neither let the light shine upon it.[5]L darkness and the shadow of death claim it for their own; let a cloud dwell upon it; let all that maketh black the day terrify it.[6]As for that night, let thick darkness seize upon it; let it not rejoice among the days of the year; let it not come into the number of the months.[7]Lo, let that night be desolate; let no joyful voice come therein.[8]Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to rouse up leviathan.[9]Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark; let it look for light, but have none; neither let it behold the eyelids of the morning;[10]Because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb, nor hid trouble from mine eyes.[11]Why died I not from the womb? Why did I not perish at birth?[12]Why did the knees receive me? And wherefore the breasts, that I should suck?[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 counsellors of the earth, who built up waste 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 that never saw light.[17]There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary are at rest.[18]There the prisoners are at ease together; they hear not the voice of the taskmaster.[19]The small and great are there alike; and the servant is free from his master.[20]Wherewith is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto 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 unto exultation, and are glad, when they can find the grave?—[23]To a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in?[24]For my sighing cometh instead of my food, and my roarings are poured out like water.[25]For the thing which I did fear is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of hath overtaken me.[26]I was not at ease, neither was I quiet, neither had I rest; but trouble came.