3 3 "Let the day perish wherein I was born,
and the night which said,
'A man-child is conceived.'
3 4 Let that day be darkness!
May God above not seek it,
nor light shine upon it.
3 5 Let gloom and deep darkness claim it.
Let clouds dwell upon it;
let the blackness of the day terrify it.
3 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.
3 7 Yea, let that night be barren;
let no joyful cry be heard in it.
3 8 Let those curse it who curse the day,
who are skilled to rouse up Leviathan.
3 9 Let the stars of its dawn be dark;
let it hope for light, but have none,
nor see the eyelids of the morning;
3 10 because it did not shut the doors of my mother's womb,
nor hide trouble from my eyes.
3 11 "Why did I not die at birth,
come forth from the womb and expire?
3 12 Why did the knees receive me?
Or why the breasts, that I should suck?
3 13 For then I should have lain down and been quiet;
I should have slept;
then I should have been at rest,
3 14 with kings and counselors of the earth
who rebuilt ruins for themselves,
3 15 or with princes who had gold,
who filled their houses with silver.
3 16 Or why was I not as a hidden untimely birth,
as infants that never see the light?
3 17 There the wicked cease from troubling,
and there the weary are at rest.
3 18 There the prisoners are at ease together;
they hear not the voice of the taskmaster.
3 19 The small and the great are there,
and the slave is free from his master.
3 20 "Why is light given to him that is in misery,
and life to the bitter in soul,
3 21 who long for death, but it comes not,
and dig for it more than for hid treasures;
3 22 who rejoice exceedingly,
and are glad, when they find the grave?
3 23 Why is light given to a man whose way is hid,
whom God has hedged in?
3 24 For my sighing comes as my bread,
and my groanings are poured out like water.
3 25 For the thing that I fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me.
3 26 I am not at ease, nor am I quiet;
I have no rest; but trouble comes."