Hebrew Bible

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

And Job spoke, and said:

Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night wherein it was said: 'A man-child is brought forth.'

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

Let 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.

As 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.

Lo, let that night be desolate; let no joyful voice come therein.

Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to rouse up leviathan.

Let 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;

Because it shut not up the doors of my [mother's] womb, nor hid trouble from mine eyes.

Why died I not from the womb? Why did I not perish at birth?

Why did the knees receive me? And wherefore the breasts, that I should suck?

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

With kings and counsellors of the earth, who built up waste places for themselves;

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

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

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

There the prisoners are at ease together; they hear not the voice of the taskmaster.

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

Wherewith is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul--

Who long for death, but it cometh not; and dig for it more than for hid treasures;

Who rejoice unto exultation, and are glad, when they can find the grave?--

To a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in?

For my sighing cometh instead of my food, and my roarings are poured out like water.

For the thing which I did fear is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of hath overtaken me.

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