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

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

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

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

^{15 Ref} Or with princes that had gold, Who filled their houses with silver:

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

^{17 Ref} There the wicked cease from troubling; And there the weary are at rest.

^{18 Ref} There the prisoners are at ease together; They hear not the voice of the taskmaster.

^{19 Ref} The small and the great are there: And the servant is free from his master.

^{20 Ref} Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, And life unto the bitter in soul;

^{21 Ref} Who long for death, but it cometh not, And dig for it more than for hid treasures;

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

^{23 Ref} `Why is light given' to a man whose way is hid, And whom God hath hedged in?

^{24 Ref} For my sighing cometh before I eat, And my groanings are poured out like water.

^{25 Ref} For the thing which I fear cometh upon me, And that which I am afraid of cometh unto me.

^{26 Ref} I am not at ease, neither am I quiet, neither have I rest; But trouble cometh.