And he said: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, And naked shall I return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Because it did not shut up the doors of my mother’s womb, Nor hide sorrow from my eyes.

“Why did I not die at birth? Why did I not perish when I came from the womb?

‘Why then have You brought me out of the womb? Oh, that I had perished and no eye had seen me!

I would have been as though I had not been. I would have been carried from the womb to the grave.

They conceive trouble and bring forth futility; Their womb prepares deceit.”

The womb should forget him, The worm should feed sweetly on him; He should be remembered no more, And wickedness should be broken like a tree.

Did not He who made me in the womb make them? Did not the same One fashion us in the womb?

(But from my youth I reared him as a father, And from my mother’s womb I guided the widow);

“Or who shut in the sea with doors, When it burst forth and issued from the womb;

From whose womb comes the ice? And the frost of heaven, who gives it birth?