Job Deplores His Birth

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 rest

¹⁴ 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.”