Job Deplores His Birth

3 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^[a] 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 rest¹⁴ 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,^[b]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.”