Job 38

 

Job 38

1 Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said:

² “Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge?

³ Brace yourself like a man; I will question you,
and you shall answer me.

⁴ “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.

⁵ Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?

⁶ On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone—

⁷ while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?

⁸ “Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb,

⁹ when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness,

¹⁰ when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place,

¹¹ when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;
here is where your proud waves halt’?

¹² “Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place,

¹³ that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it?

¹⁴ The earth takes shape like clay under a seal; its features stand out like those of a garment.

¹⁵ The wicked are denied their light, and their upraised arm is broken.

¹⁶ “Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep?

¹⁷ Have the gates of death been shown to you? Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness?

¹⁸ Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth? Tell me, if you know all this.

¹⁹ “What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside?

²⁰ Can you take them to their places? Do you know the paths to their dwellings?

²¹ Surely you know, for you were already born! You have lived so many years!

²² “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail,

²³ which I reserve for times of trouble, for days of war and battle?

²⁴ What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed, or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth?

²⁵ Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain, and a path for the thunderstorm,

²⁶ to water a land where no one lives, an uninhabited desert,

²⁷ to satisfy a desolate wasteland and make it sprout with grass?

²⁸ Does the rain have a father? Who fathers the drops of dew?

²⁹ From whose womb comes the ice? Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens

³⁰ when the waters become hard as stone, when the surface of the deep is frozen?

³¹ “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades? Can you loosen Orion’s belt?

³² Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear with its cubs?

³³ Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set up God’s^[e] dominion over the earth?

³⁴ “Can you raise your voice to the clouds and cover yourself with a flood of water?

³⁵ Do you send the lightning bolts on their way? Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?

³⁶ Who gives the ibis wisdom or gives the rooster understanding?

³⁷ Who has the wisdom to count the clouds? Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens

³⁸ when the dust becomes hard and the clods of earth stick together?

³⁹ “Do you hunt the prey for the lioness and satisfy the hunger of the lions

⁴⁰ when they crouch in their dens or lie in wait in a thicket?

⁴¹ Who provides food for the raven when its young cry out to God and wander about for lack of food?