Job curses the day of his birth -- The ease of death -- He complaineth of life.

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

²⁾And Job spake, and said,

³⁾Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man-child conceived.

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

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

⁶⁾As for that night, let darkness seize upon it; let it not be joined unto the days of the year; let it not come into the number of the months.

⁷⁾Lo, let that night be solitary; let no joyful voice come therein.

⁸⁾Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning.

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

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

¹¹⁾Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?

¹²⁾Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I should suck?

¹³⁾For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept; then had I been at rest,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

²¹⁾Which long for death, but it cometh not; and dig for it more than for hid treasures;

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

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

²⁴⁾For my sighing cometh before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters.

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

²⁶⁾I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came.