Job 3 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.

After that, Job opened his mouth and cursed the day he was born.

Job said:

Let the day I was born be lost, and the night that said, "A man has been conceived."

That day — let there be darkness. Let God above not go looking for it. Let no light break over it.

Let darkness and the shadow of death claim it back as their own. Let a cloud move in and settle on it. Let whatever swallows the daylight terrify it.

That night — let the thick dark take hold of it. Let it not join the days of the year; let it never enter the count of the months.

Look — let that night be barren. Let no cry of joy get in.

Let the ones who put curses on days curse it — the ones ready to rouse Leviathan.

Let the stars of its dawn go black. Let it wait for light and find none. Let it never see the eyelids of dawn lift.

Because it didn't shut the doors of the womb I came from, or hide this misery from my eyes.

Why didn't I die in the womb, come out of my mother and breathe my last?

Why were there knees waiting to catch me, breasts for me to nurse?

By now I'd be lying down, still. I'd be asleep. I'd have rest —

with kings and the counselors of the earth, who built themselves monuments that are rubble now,

or with rulers who had gold, who filled their houses with silver.

Or I'd be a stillbirth, buried out of sight, like the infants who never saw light.

Down there the guilty stop their turmoil; down there the ones whose strength is spent lie down and rest.

Prisoners are at ease together; they don't hear the slave driver's voice.

Small and great are the same there, and the slave is free of his master.

Why is light handed to a man in misery, life to people who are bitter to the core —

who wait for death and it doesn't come, who dig for it harder than for buried treasure,

who would go wild with joy, who would celebrate if they could only find a grave?

Why light for a man whose road is hidden from him, a man God has fenced in on every side?

My sighing arrives before my food does; my groaning pours out of me like water.

The thing I dreaded has come for me; what I was afraid of has found me.

I have no ease. I have no stillness. I have no rest. And the turmoil keeps coming.