American Standard Version of 1901
Versliste
Why died I not from the womb?Why did I not give up the ghost when my mother bare me?
Why did the knees receive me?Or why the breast, that I should suck?
For now should I have lain down and been quiet;I should have slept; then had I been at rest,
With kings and counsellors of the earth,Who {Or, built solitary piles}built up waste places for themselves;
Or with princes that had gold,Who filled their houses with silver
Or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been,As infants that never saw light.
There the wicked cease from {Or, raging}troubling;And there the weary are at rest.
There the prisoners are at ease together;They hear not the voice of the taskmaster.
The small and the great are there:And the servant is free from his master.
Why did the knees receive me?Or why the breast, that I should suck?
Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery,And life unto the bitter in soul;
If I have sinned, what {Or, can I do}do I unto thee, O thou {Or, preserver}watcher of men?Why hast thou set me as a mark for thee,So that I am a burden to myself?
And why dost thou not pardon my transgression, and take away mine iniquity?For now shall I lie down in the dust;And thou wilt seek me diligently, but I shall not be.
Wherefore then hast thou brought me forth out of the womb?I had given up the ghost, and no eye had seen me.
{Or, At all adventures I will take &c.}Wherefore should I take my flesh in my teeth,And put my life in my hand?
Wherefore hidest thou thy face,And holdest me for thine enemy?
Wherefore do the wicked live,Become old, yea, wax mighty in power?
{Or, Why is it, seeing times are not hidden from the Almighty, That they who know him see not his days? }Why are times not laid up by the Almighty?And why do not they that know him see his days?
And when Jacob made an end of charging his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people.
And Joseph saw Ephraim's children of the third generation: the children also of Machir the son of Manasseh were born upon Joseph's knees.
For thus saith Jehovah, Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream: {Or, then shall ye suck, ye &c.}and ye shall suck thereof; ye shall be borne upon the side, and shall be dandled upon the knees.
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:
for it cometh in vanity, and departeth in darkness, and the name thereof is covered with darkness;
moreover it hath not seen the sun {Or, neither had any knowledge}nor known it; {Or, it is better with this than with the other}this hath rest rather than the other:
Let them be as a snail which melteth and passeth away,Like the untimely birth of a woman, {Or, like them that have not seen the sun}that hath not seen the sun.
And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and that he was carried away by the angels into Abraham's bosom: and the rich man also died, and was buried.
And in Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.