1After this opened Job his mouth , and cursed his day . 2And Job answered and said : 3Let the day perish wherein I was born , And the night which said, There is a man-child conceived. 4Let that day be darkness ; Let not God from above seek for it , Neither let the light shine upon it . 5Let 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 . 6As 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 . 7Lo , let that night be barren ; Let no joyful voice come therein. 8Let them curse it that curse the day , Who are ready to rouse up leviathan . 9Let 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 : 10Because it shut not up the doors of my mother’s womb, Nor hid trouble from mine eyes .
Desire for Death
11Why died I not from the womb ? Why did I not give up the ghost when my mother bare me ? 12Why did the knees receive me ? Or why the breasts , that I should suck ? 13For now should I have lain down and been quiet ; I should have slept ; then had I been at rest , 14With kings and counsellors of the earth, Who built up waste 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 that never saw light. 17There the wicked cease from troubling ; And there the weary are at rest . 18There the prisoners are at ease together ; They hear not the voice of the taskmaster . 19The small and the great are there : And the servant is free from his master. 20Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery , And life unto the bitter in soul ;
The Silence of God
21Who long for death , but it cometh not, And dig for it more than for hid 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 hath hedged in ? 24For my sighing cometh before I eat , And my groanings are poured out like water . 25For the thing which I fear cometh upon me , And that which I am afraid of cometh unto me . 26I am not at ease , neither am I quiet , neither have I rest ; But trouble cometh.