After this opened Iob his mouth, and cursed his daye,

and sayde:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let 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:

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

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

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

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

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

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

O 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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