Job Laments His Birth

1After this opened Iob his mouth, and cursed his daye, 2and sayde:

3lost be that daye, wherin I was borne: and the night, in the which it was sayde: there is a manchilde conceaued.

4The same daye be turned to darcknesse, and not regarded of God from aboue, nether be shyned vpo wt light:

5but be couered with darcknesse, and the shadowe of death. Let the dymme cloude fall vpon it, and let it be lapped in with sorowe.

6Let the darckstorme ouercome ye night, let it not be reckened amonge the dayes off the yeare, ner counted in the monethes.

7Despysed be that night, and discommended: let them that curse the daye,

8geue it their curse also, euen those that be ready to rayse vp Leuiathan.

9Let the starres be dymme thorow darcknesse of it. Let it loke for light, but let it se none, nether the rysynge vp of the fayre mornynge:

10because it shut not vp the wombe that bare me, ner hyd these sorowes fro myne eyes.

11Alas, why dyed I not in ye byrth? Why dyd not I perysh, as soone as I came out of my mothers wobe?

12Why set they me vpo yeir knees? Why gaue they me suck with their brestes?

13Then shulde I now haue lyen still, I shulde haue slepte, and bene at rest:

14like as the kynges ad lordes of ye earth, which buylde them selues speciall places:

15As the prynces that haue greate substaunce of golde, & their houses full of syluer.

16O that I vtterly had no beynge, or were as a thige borne out of tyme (that is put asyde) ether as yonge children, which neuer sawe the light.

17There must the wicked ceasse from their tyranny, there soch as are ouerlaboured, be at rest:

18there are those letten out fre, which haue bene in preson, so that they heare nomore the voyce of the oppressoure:

19There are small and greate: the bonde man, and he that is fre fro his master.

20Wherfore is the light geuen, to him that is in mysery? and life vnto them, that haue heuy hertes?

21(Which longe for death, and it commeth not: for yf they might fynde their graue,

22they wolde be maruelous glad, as those that dygge vp treasure)

23To the man whose waye is hyd, which God kepeth backe from him.

24This is the cause, that I syghe before I eate, and my roaringes fall out like a water floude.

25For the thynge that I feared, is come vpon me: and the thynge that I was afrayed of, is happened vnto me.

26Was I not happy? Had I not quyetnesse? Was I not in rest? And now commeth soch mysery vpon me.