¹ In the end it was Job who broke the silence and cursed the day of his birth.

² This is what he said:

³ Perish the day on which I was born and the night that told of a boy conceived.

⁴ May that day be darkness, may God on high have no thought for it, may no light shine on it.

⁵ May murk and shadow dark as death claim it for their own, clouds hang over it, eclipse swoop down on it.

⁶ See! Let obscurity seize on it, from the days of the year let it be excluded, into the reckoning of the months not find its way.

⁷ And may that night be sterile, devoid of any cries of joy!

⁸ Let it be cursed by those who curse certain days and are ready to rouse Leviathan.

⁹ Dark be the stars of its morning, let it wait in vain for light and never see the opening eyes of dawn.

¹⁰ Since it would not shut the doors of the womb on me to hide sorrow from my eyes.

¹¹ Why was I not still-born, or why did I not perish as I left the womb?

¹² Why were there knees to receive me, breasts for me to suck?

¹³ Now I should be lying in peace, wrapped in a restful slumber,

¹⁴ with the kings and high viziers of earth who have built their dwellings in desolate places,

¹⁵ or with princes who have quantities of gold and silver cramming their tombs;

¹⁶ or, put away like an abortive child, I should not have existed, like little ones that never see the light.

¹⁷ Down there, the wicked bustle no more, there the weary rest.

¹⁸ Prisoners, all left in peace, hear no more the shouts of the oppressor.

¹⁹ High and low are there together, and the slave is free of his master.

²⁰ Why give light to a man of grief? Why give life to those bitter of heart,

²¹ who long for a death that never comes, and hunt for it more than for buried treasure?

²² They would be glad to see the grave-mound and shout with joy if they reached the tomb.

²³ Why give light to one who does not see his way, whom God shuts in all alone?

²⁴ My only food is sighs, and my groans pour out like water.

²⁵ Whatever I fear comes true, whatever I dread befalls me.

²⁶ For me, there is no calm, no peace; my torments banish rest.

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The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) is a Catholic translation of the Bible published in 1985. The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) has become the most widely used Roman Catholic Bible outside of the United States. It has the imprimatur of Cardinal George Basil Hume.

Like its predecessor, the Jerusalem Bible, the New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) version is translated "directly from the Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic." The 1973 French translation, the Bible de Jerusalem, is followed only "where the text admits to more than one interpretation." Introductions and notes, with some modifications, are taken from the Bible de Jerusalem.

Source: The Very Reverend Dom (Joseph) Henry Wansbrough, OSB, MA (Oxon), STL (Fribourg), LSS (Rome), a monk of Ampleforth Abbey and a biblical scholar. He was General Editor of the New Jerusalem Bible. "New Jerusalem Bible, Regular Edition", pg. v.

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