Job 3

3 “Let the day perish on which I was born,

and the night when they said, ‘Look — a boy!’

4 Let that day be darkness.

Let the Lord above not come looking for it,

and let no light come into it.

5 Let darkness and the shadow of death take hold of it;

let thick darkness come down over it.

6 Let that day and that night be cursed;

let the darkness carry it off.

Let it not stand among the days of the year,

and let it not be counted in the days of the months.

7 Let that night be pain;

let no gladness come on it, and no joy.

8 Let the one who curses that day curse it —

the man who is ready to take on the great sea creature.

9 Let the stars of that night go dark.

Let it wait for light and never reach it,

and let it never see the morning star rise,

10 because it did not shut the gates of my mother’s womb;

it would have kept trouble away from my eyes.

11 Why did I not die in the belly?

Why, when I came out of the womb, did I not die at once?

12 Why did knees take me up?

Why did I nurse at the breasts?

13 By now I would have lain down and been quiet;

I would have slept, and I would have been at rest,

14 with kings and the counselors of the earth,

who took their pride in their swords,

15 or with rulers whose gold was plentiful,

who filled their houses up with silver —

16 or like a child born dead, coming out of a mother’s womb,

or like infants who never saw the light.

17 There the ungodly have burned out the heat of their anger;

there those worn out in body are at rest.

18 Together the people of long ago have not heard the tax collector’s voice.

19 Small and great are there,

and the servant is not afraid of his master.

20 Why is light given to those in bitterness,

and life to souls that are in pain —

21 who long for death and do not get it,

digging for it as if it were buried treasure,

22 and would be overjoyed if they came upon it?

23 Death is rest for a man,

for God has shut him in.

24 My groaning comes before my food,

and I weep, gripped by fear.

25 The fear I brooded over has come to me,

and the thing I dreaded has met me.

26 I had no peace, no quiet, no rest,

and anger came to me.”