Job

¹ Then Job broke the silence. He spoke up and cursed his fate:

³ Blank out the night I was conceived!

⁴ May God above forget it ever happened. Erase it from the books!

⁵ shrouded by the fog, swallowed by the night.

⁶ Rip the date off the calendar, delete it from the almanac.

⁷ no sounds of pleasure from that night, ever!

⁸ Unleash the sea beast, Leviathan, on it.

⁹ waiting for a daylight that never comes, never once seeing the first light of dawn.

¹⁰ into a life with so much trouble.

¹¹ my first breath out of the womb my last?

¹² and breasts for me to drink from?

¹³ asleep forever, feeling no pain,

¹⁴ in their royal ruins,

¹⁵ in their gold and silver tombs.

¹⁶ with all the babies who never saw light,

¹⁷ and bone-weary people get a long-deserved rest?

¹⁸ never again to wake up to the bark of the guards.

¹⁹ and slaves are free from their masters.

²⁰ why bother keeping bitter people alive,

²¹ who can't imagine anything better than death,

²² the happiest day of their life?

²³ when God blocks all the roads to meaning?

²⁴ then leave the table and vomit my anguish.

²⁵ what I've dreaded most has happened.

²⁶ No rest for me, ever—death has invaded life."