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[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.
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