1 Afterward Job opened his mouth and cursed his day.
2 Job spoke out and said:
3 "Let the day I was born in perish, and the night that said, 'A boy has been conceived!'
4 That day, let it turn to darkness; may God on high not inquire after it, and may no light beam upon it.
5 May darkness and deep darkness reclaim it; may a cloud dwell over it; may all that blackens the day terrify it.
6 That night, may gloom take hold of it; may it have no joy among the days of the year, nor enter into the number of the months.
7 See, may that night be childless; may no glad cry come into it.
8 Let them curse it who curse the day, who are skilled at rousing Leviathan.
9 May its twilight stars grow dark; may it look for light and have none, and never see the eyelids of the dawn,
10 because it did not close the doors of the womb that bore me, and did not hide trouble from my eyes.
11 Why did I not die as I left the womb, come out of the belly and expire?
12 Why were there knees to receive me, and why breasts for me to suck?
13 For by now I would be lying down in quiet; I would be asleep and at rest,
14 with kings and counselors of the earth who built for themselves places that lie desolate,
15 or with princes who owned gold, who filled their houses with silver.
16 Or I would not be, like a stillborn hidden away, like babies that never saw light.
17 There the wicked stop their raging, and there those whose strength is spent find rest.
18 There the captives are at ease together; they no longer hear the shout of the slave driver.
19 Small and great alike are there, and the slave is free of his master.
20 Why does he give light to the wretched, and life to those bitter of soul,
21 who wait for death and it does not come, who dig for it more than for buried treasure,
22 who are glad to the point of exulting, who rejoice when they find the grave,
23 to a man whose way is concealed, and whom God has fenced about?
24 For my sighing comes ahead of my food, and my groanings are poured out like water.
25 For the fear I feared has overtaken me, and what I was afraid of has come to me.
26 I have no peace, no quiet, no rest; and agitation comes."