9. Let the stars of its dawn be dark;let it hope for light, but have none,nor see the eyelids of the morning,
10. because it did not shut the doors of my mother’s womb,nor hide trouble from my eyes.
11. “Why did I not die at birth,come out from the womb and expire?
12. Why did the knees receive me?Or why the breasts, that I should nurse?
13. For then I would have lain down and been quiet;I would have slept; then I would have been at rest,
14. with kings and counselors of the earthwho rebuilt ruins for themselves,
15. or with princes who had gold,who filled their houses with silver.
16. Or why was I not as a hidden stillborn child,as infants who never see the light?
17. There the wicked cease from troubling,and there the weary are at rest.
18. There the prisoners are at ease together;they hear not the voice of the taskmaster.
19. The small and the great are there,and the slave is free from his master.
20. “Why is light given to him who is in misery,and life to the bitter in soul,
21. who long for death, but it comes not,and dig for it more than for hidden treasures,
22. who rejoice exceedinglyand are glad when they find the grave?