[1] After all this, Job finally opened his mouth and cursed the day he was born. [2] Job said, [3] "Scratch out the day I was born and the night that said, 'A boy has been conceived!' [4] "That day- let it be pitch-black. Let God above not even care about it. Let no light shine on it. [5] Let the darkness and long shadows claim it as their own. Let a dark cloud hang over it. Let the gloom terrify it. [6] "That night- let the blackness take it away. Let it not be included in the days of the year or be numbered among the months. [7] Let that night be empty. Let no joyful singing be heard in it. [8] Let those who curse the day (those who know how to wake up Leviathan ) curse that night. [9] Let its stars turn dark before dawn. Let it hope for light and receive none. Let it not see the first light of dawn [10] because it did not shut the doors of the womb from which I came or hide my eyes from trouble. [11] "Why didn't I die as soon as I was born and breathe my last breath when I came out of the womb? [12] Why did knees welcome me? Why did breasts let me nurse? [13] Instead of being alive, I would now be quietly lying down. I would now be sleeping peacefully. [14] I would be with the kings and the counselors of the world who built for themselves what are now ruins. [15] I would be with princes who had gold, who filled their homes with silver. [16] I would be buried like a stillborn baby. I would not exist. I would be like infants who never saw the light. [17] There the wicked stop their raging. There the weary are able to rest. [18] There the captives have no troubles at all. There they do not hear the shouting of the slave driver. [19] There you find both the unimportant and important people. There the slave is free from his master. [20] "Why give light to one in misery and life to those who find it so bitter, [21] to those who long for death but it never comes- though they dig for it more than for buried treasure? [22] They are ecstatic, delighted to find the grave. [23] Why give light to those whose paths have been hidden, to those whom God has fenced in? [24] "When my food is in front of me, I sigh. I pour out my groaning like water. [25] What I fear most overtakes me. What I dread happens to me. [26] I have no peace! I have no quiet! I have no rest! And trouble keeps coming!"
