Job Speaks

1After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day.

2And Job spoke, and said,

3Let the day perish on which I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a male child conceived.

4Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it.

5Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it.

6As for that night, let darkness seize upon it; let it not rejoice among the days of the year, let it not come into the number of the months.

7Lo, let that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come into it.

8Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to arouse leviathan.

9Let the stars of its twilight be dark; let it look for light, but have none; neither let it see the dawning of the day:

10Because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb, nor hid sorrow from my eyes.

11Why died I not from the womb? why did I not expire when I came out of the womb?

12Why did the knees receive me? or why the breasts that I should nurse?

13For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept: then would I have been at rest,

14With kings and counselors of the earth, who built desolate places for themselves;

15Or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver:

16Or as a hidden untimely birth, I had not been; as infants who never saw light.

17There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary are at rest.

18There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor.

19The small and great are there; and the servant is free from his master.

20Therefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul;

21Who long for death, but it comes not; and dig for it more than for hidden treasures;

22Who rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find the grave?

23Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God has hedged in?

24For my sighing comes before I eat, and my groanings are poured out like the waters.

25For the thing which I greatly feared has come upon me, and that which I was afraid of has come unto me.

26I was not at ease, neither had I quiet, neither was I at rest; yet trouble came.