Job 38:1-41
38 But Jehovah answered Job out of the tempest
2 * “Who is this that is befogging a discussionby phrases without knowledge?
3 Gird your loins like a manso that I may ask you questions and you inform me.
4 Where were you when I laid the foundation of earth?tell, if you have competent knowledge.
5 Who determined its dimensions? for you know!or who stretched a measuring-line over it?
6 On what were its under-foundations planted?or who laid its cornerstone
7 * While the morning stars shouted togetherand all the angels hurrahed?
8 * Who enclosed the sea with doorswhen it came bursting out of the womb,
9 When I made clouds its clothingand thick air its wrapping
10 And broke a boundary for itand set a bar and doors,
11 And said ‘You are to come to here but not beyond,and here the pride of your waves shall break’?
12 Did you ever in your life command a morning,let a dawn know its place
13 To take hold of earth’s edgesthat wrong-doers may be shaken out of it?
14 ** It takes shape like clay printed with a stamp,and colors like a dress,
15 And wrong-doers have their light withheld,and a high-raised arm is broken.
16 Have you come to the sources of the seaand gone inspecting through the deep?
17 * Have the gates of death been laid open for you,or the gatemen of gloom been afraid at sight of you?
18 Have you applied your attention to the breadths of earth?tell, if you know it all.
19 In which direction does light have its home,and which is the place for darkness?
20 * Because you get it at its domainand are expert in the paths to its house.
21 You know, because you were born thenand the number of your days is great!
22 Have you been into the reserves of snow,and seen the reserves of hail
23 Which I am holding back for a day of crisis,a day of battle and war?
24 * In which direction is wind divided,east wind scattered over earth?
25 * Who laid out a system of channels for floodsand a course for the lightning of thunder,
26 To send rain on a country without a man,a wilderness with no human being in it,
27 * To satisfy the hunger of blasted and blighted placesand to make a thirsty place grow vegetation?
28 Does the rain have a father?or who brought dewdrops to birth?
29 * Out of whose body did the ice come?and who gave birth to hoarfrost?
30 * Water masks itself like a stoneand the surface of the deep coheres.
31 * Shall you be tying the laces of the Pleiadesor unhitching the traces of Orion,
32 ** Making Mazzaroth come out at its timeand guiding Aldebaran with its sons under it?
33 Do you know the laws of the skyor are you ordaining its supervision of the earth?
34 * Will you send your voice aloft to the cloudand have a spray of water cover you?
35 Will you send lightnings abroad, and have them goand say to you ‘Here we are’?
36 * Who implanted wisdom in the ibis?or who gave discernment to the cock?
37 Who counts in wisdom the threads of mare’s-tail clouds,and the water-bags of the sky who tips down
38 When loam runs into metaland clods cling together?
39 Will you hunt prey for a lionessand fill the need of two-year-old lions
40 When they are down in the lairs,sitting in ambush in a covert?
41 Who gets its provision ready for the ravenwhen its young are clamoring to Deity,wandering about in want of food?
Footnotes
^ 38:2 Lit. darkening
^ 38:7 Lit. all the sons of God (or of gods)
^ 38:8 Var. And enclosed
^ 38:14 Lit. It turns over like
^ 38:14 Lit. takes variegation like a dress Codd. stands out like a dress
^ 38:17 Var. or do you see the gates of gloom
^ 38:20 Conj.* for darkness, so that you may take it to its domain and bring it along the paths to
^ 38:24 Codd. is light divided
^ 38:25 Lit. branched a channel
^ 38:27 Codd. and to set an output of vegetation growing
^ 38:29 Lit. sky-frost
^ 38:30 Lit. hides itself
^ 38:31 Unc.
^ 38:32 (Mazzaroth) Unc., susp.
^ 38:32 Lit. over its sons
^ 38:34 Var. answer you
^ 38:36 (ibis, cock) Unc.
