Job Laments His Birth
After this Job opened his mouth and cursed his day.
And Job answered and said:
Let the day perish in which I was born, and the night that said, “A man-child is conceived.”
That day — let it be darkness. Let not God seek it from above, and let no daylight shine upon it.
Let darkness and the shadow of death redeem it. Let a cloud settle upon it. Let the blackenings of the day terrify it.
That night — let gloom take it. Let it not rejoice among the days of the year; let it not come into the number of the months.
Look, that night — let it be barren; let no glad cry come in it.
Let those curse it who curse the day, those ready to rouse Leviathan.
Let the stars of its twilight be dark; let it hope for light, and there be none; and let it not see the eyelids of the dawn —
because it did not shut the doors of my mother’s womb, and hide trouble from my eyes.
Why did I not die from the womb, come out from the belly and expire?
Why did knees receive me, and why breasts, that I should suck?
For now I would be lying down and quiet; I would have slept — then there would be rest for me —
with kings and counselors of the earth, who build ruins for themselves;
or with officials who had gold, who filled their houses with silver.
Or like a hidden stillbirth I would not be, like infants who never saw light.
There the wicked cease from raging, and there the weary of strength rest.
Together the prisoners are at ease; they do not hear the voice of the taskmaster.
Small and great are there alike, and the slave is free from his master.
Why does he give light to the sufferer, and life to the bitter of soul —
who wait for death, and it is not, and dig for it more than for hidden treasures;
who rejoice to exultation, who are glad when they find a grave —
to a man whose way is hidden, and whom God has put a hedge around?
For before my bread my groaning comes, and my roarings pour out like water.
For the dread I dreaded has come upon me, and what I feared has come to me.
I was not at ease, and I was not quiet, and I had no rest; and raging came.