³ “Let the day perish on which I was born,
    and the night that said,
    ‘A man is conceived.’
⁴ Let that day be darkness!
    May God above not seek it,
    nor light shine upon it.
⁵ Let gloom and deep darkness claim it.
    Let clouds dwell upon it;
    let the blackness of the day terrify it.
⁶ That night—let thick darkness seize it!
    Let it not rejoice among the days of the year;
    let it not come into the number of the months.
⁷ Behold, let that night be barren;
    let no joyful cry enter it.
⁸ Let those curse it who curse the day,
    who are ready to rouse up Leviathan.
⁹ Let the stars of its dawn be dark;
    let it hope for light, but have none,
    nor see the eyelids of the morning,
¹⁰ because it did not shut the doors of my mother's womb,
    nor hide trouble from my eyes.

¹¹ “Why did I not die at birth,
    come out from the womb and expire?
¹² Why did the knees receive me?
    Or why the breasts, that I should nurse?
¹³ For then I would have lain down and been quiet;
    I would have slept; then I would have been at rest,
¹⁴ with kings and counselors of the earth
    who rebuilt ruins for themselves,
¹⁵ or with princes who had gold,
    who filled their houses with silver.
¹⁶ Or why was I not as a hidden stillborn child,
    as infants who never see the light?
¹⁷ There the wicked cease from troubling,
    and there the weary are at rest.
¹⁸ There the prisoners are at ease together;
    they hear not the voice of the taskmaster.
¹⁹ The small and the great are there,
    and the slave is free from his master.

²⁰ “Why is light given to him who is in misery,
    and life to the bitter in soul,
²¹ who long for death, but it comes not,
    and dig for it more than for hidden treasures,
²² who rejoice exceedingly
    and are glad when they find the grave?
²³ Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden,
    whom God has hedged in?
²⁴ For my sighing comes instead of^[a] my bread,
    and my groanings are poured out like water.
²⁵ For the thing that I fear comes upon me,
    and what I dread befalls me.
²⁶ I am not at ease, nor am I quiet;
    I have no rest, but trouble comes.”