³ yea, better than them both `did I esteem' him that hath not yet been, who hath not seen the evil work that is done under the sun.

²⁹ For behold, the days are coming, in which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the breasts that never gave suck.

¹⁹ But woe unto them that are with child and to them that give suck in those days!

¹⁷ because he slew me not from the womb; and so my mother would have been my grave, and her womb always great.

¹⁸ Wherefore came I forth out of the womb to see labor and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame?

² Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging-place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! for they are all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.

³ And they bend their tongue, `as it were' their bow, for falsehood; and they are grown strong in the land, but not for truth: for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith Jehovah.

³ If a man beget a hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul be not filled with good, and moreover he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he:

⁴ for it cometh in vanity, and departeth in darkness, and the name thereof is covered with darkness;

⁵ moreover it hath not seen the sun nor known it; this hath rest rather than the other:

¹⁷ So I hated life, because the work that is wrought under the sun was grievous unto me; for all is vanity and a striving after wind.

¹⁴ I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.

⁶ And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove! Then would I fly away, and be at rest.

⁷ Lo, then would I wander far off, I would lodge in the wilderness. Selah

⁸ I would haste me to a shelter From the stormy wind and tempest.

⁹ Destroy, O Lord, `and' divide their tongue; For I have seen violence and strife in the city.

¹⁰ Day and night they go about it upon the walls thereof: Iniquity also and mischief are in the midst of it.

¹¹ Wickedness is in the midst thereof: Oppression and guile depart not from its streets.

¹⁸ Wherefore then hast thou brought me forth out of the womb? I had given up the ghost, and no eye had seen me.

¹⁹ I should have been as though I had not been; I should have been carried from the womb to the grave.

²² Who rejoice exceedingly, And are glad, when they can find the grave?

¹⁰ Because it shut not up the doors of my `mother's' womb, Nor hid trouble from mine eyes.

¹¹ Why died I not from the womb? Why did I not give up the ghost when my mother bare me?

¹² Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breast, that I should suck?

¹³ For now should I have lain down and been quiet; I should have slept; then had I been at rest,

¹⁴ With kings and counsellors of the earth, Who built up waste places for themselves;

¹⁵ Or with princes that had gold, Who filled their houses with silver:

¹⁶ Or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been, As infants that never saw light.