Job 3 · איוב

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

And Iyyov spoke, and said,

Oh that the day had perished wherein I was born, and the night which said, There is a man child conceived.

Let that day be darkness; let not God inquire after it from above, nor let the light shine upon it.

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

As for that night, let 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 solitary, let no joyful cry be heard in it.

Let them curse it who curse the day, who are ready to arouse livyatan.

Let the stars of its dusk be dark; let it look for light, but have none; and let it not see the eyelids of the morn:

because it did not shut up the doors of my mother’s womb nor hide trouble from my eyes.

Why did I not die from the womb? why did I not perish when I came out of the belly?

Why did the knees receive me? or why 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 desolate places for themselves;

or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver:

or as an 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 slave driver.

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

Why is light given to him that is in misery, and life to the bitter in soul;

who long for death, but it does not come; and dig for it more than for hidden treasures;

who rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find a grave?

Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden, and from whom God has screened himself?

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

For the thing which I had feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come to me.

I had no repose, nor had I rest, nor was I quiet; yet trouble came.