11  “Why ^mdid I not die at birth,

come out from the womb and expire?

12  Why did ⁿthe 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 earth

who ^orebuilt 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 ^pstillborn child,

as infants who never see the light?

17  There the wicked cease from troubling,

and there the weary are at ^qrest.

18  There the prisoners are at ease together;

they hear not the voice of ^rthe taskmaster.

19  The small and the great are there,

and the slave is free from his master.