Job 3:11-26

English Standard Version

¹¹“Why ^(A)did I not die at birth,
    come out from the womb and expire?
¹²Why did ^(B)the 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 ^(C)rebuilt ruins for themselves,
¹⁵or with princes who had gold,
    who filled their houses with silver.
¹⁶Or why was I not as a hidden ^(D)stillborn child,
    as infants who never see the light?
¹⁷There the wicked cease from troubling,
    and there the weary are at ^(E)rest.
¹⁸There the prisoners are at ease together;
    they hear not the voice of ^(F)the 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 ^(G)the bitter in soul,
²¹who ^(H)long for death, but it comes not,
    and dig for it more than for ^(I)hidden treasures,
²²who rejoice exceedingly
    and are glad when they find the grave?
²³Why is light given to a man whose ^(J)way is hidden,
    whom God has ^(K)hedged in?
²⁴For my sighing comes ^(L)instead of^[a] my bread,
    and my ^(M)groanings are poured out like water.
²⁵^(N)For 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.”