Job 3:11–26

¹¹“Why ^mdid I not die at birth,

come out from the womb and expire?

¹²Why did ⁿthe knees receive me?

Or why the breasts, that I should nurse?

¹³For then I would have lain down and been quiet;

I would have slept; then I would have been at rest,

¹⁴with kings and counselors of the earth

who ^orebuilt ruins for themselves,

¹⁵or with princes who had gold,

who filled their houses with silver.

¹⁶Or why was I not as a hidden ^pstillborn child,

as infants who never see the light?

¹⁷There the wicked cease from troubling,

and there the weary are at ^qrest.

¹⁸There the prisoners are at ease together;

they hear not the voice of ^rthe taskmaster.

¹⁹The 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 ^sthe bitter in soul,

²¹who ^tlong for death, but it comes not,

and dig for it more than for ^uhidden treasures,

²²who rejoice exceedingly

and are glad when they find the grave?

²³Why is light given to a man whose ^vway is hidden,

whom God has ^whedged in?

²⁴For my sighing comes ^xinstead of¹ my bread,

and my ^ygroanings are poured out like water.

^25zFor the thing that I fear comes upon me,

and what I dread befalls me.

²⁶I am not at ease, nor am I quiet;

I have no rest, but trouble comes.”