³⁹ Then why should we, mere humans, complain
    when we are punished for our sins?

⁴⁰ Instead, let us test and examine our ways.
    Let us turn back to the Lord.

²² The faithful love of the Lord never ends!^[a]
    His mercies never cease.
²³ Great is his faithfulness;
    his mercies begin afresh each morning.

¹⁴ Yet I curse the day I was born!
    May no one celebrate the day of my birth.
¹⁵ I curse the messenger who told my father,
    “Good news—you have a son!”
¹⁶ Let him be destroyed like the cities of old
    that the Lord overthrew without mercy.
Terrify him all day long with battle shouts,
¹⁷     because he did not kill me at birth.
Oh, that I had died in my mother’s womb,
    that her body had been my grave!
¹⁸ Why was I ever born?
    My entire life has been filled
    with trouble, sorrow, and shame.

¹⁸ Why then does my suffering continue?
    Why is my wound so incurable?
Your help seems as uncertain as a seasonal brook,
    like a spring that has gone dry.”

“What sorrow is mine, my mother.
    Oh, that I had died at birth!
    I am hated everywhere I go.
I am neither a lender who threatens to foreclose
    nor a borrower who refuses to pay—
    yet they all curse me.”