CHAPTER 38

¹And the LORD answered Job from the whirlwind and He said:

                ²Who is this who darkens counsel

                    in words without knowledge?

                ³Gird your loins like a man,

                    that I may ask you, and you can inform Me.

                ⁴Where were you when I founded earth?

                    Tell, if you know understanding.

                ⁵Who fixed its measures, do you know,

                    or who stretched a line upon it?

                ⁶In what were its sockets sunk,

                    or who laid its cornerstone,

                ⁷when the morning stars sang together,

                    and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

                ⁸Who hedged the sea with double doors,

                    when it gushed forth from the womb.

                ⁹when I made cloud its clothing,

                    and thick mist its swaddling bands?

                ¹⁰I made breakers upon it My limit,

                    and set a bolt with double doors.

                ¹¹And I said, “Thus far come, no farther,

                    here halt the surge of your waves.”

                ¹²Have you ever commanded the morning,

                    appointed the dawn to its place,

                ¹³to seize the earth’s corners,

                    that the wicked be shaken from it?

                ¹⁴It turns like sealing clay,

                    takes color like a garment,

                ¹⁵and their light is withdrawn from the wicked,

                    and the upraised arm is broken.

                ¹⁶Have you come into the springs of the sea,

                    in the bottommost deep walked about?

                ¹⁷Have the gates of death been laid bare to you,

                    and the gates of death’s shadow have you seen?

                ¹⁸Did you take in the breadth of the earth?

                    Tell, if you know it all.

                ¹⁹Where is the way that light dwells,

                    and darkness, where is its place,

                ²⁰that you might take it to its home

                    and understand the paths to its house?

                ²¹You know, for you were born then,

                    and the number of your days is great!

                ²²Have you come into the storehouse of snow,

                    the storehouse of hail have you seen,

                ²³which I keep for a time of strife,

                    for a day of battle and war?

                ²⁴By what way does the west wind fan out,

                    the east wind whip over the earth?

                ²⁵Who split a channel for the torrent,

                    and a way for the thunderstorm,

                ²⁶to rain on a land without man,

                    wilderness bare of humankind,

                ²⁷to sate the desolate dunes

                    and make the grass sprout there?

                ²⁸Does the rain have a father,

                    or who begot the drops of dew?

                ²⁹From whose belly did the ice come forth,

                    to the frost of the heavens who gave birth?

                ³⁰Water congeals like stone,

                    and the face of the deep locks hard.

                ³¹Can you tie the bands of the Pleiades,

                    or loose Orion’s reins?

                ³²Can you bring constellations out in their season,

                    lead the Great Bear and her cubs?

                ³³Do you know the laws of the heavens,

                    can you fix their rule on earth?

                ³⁴Can you lift your voice to the cloud,

                    that the water-spate cover you?

                ³⁵Can you send lightning bolts on their way,

                    and they will say to you, “Here we are!”?

                ³⁶Who placed in the hidden parts wisdom,

                    or who gave the mind understanding?

                ³⁷Who counted the skies in wisdom,

                    and the jars of the heavens who tilted,

                ³⁸when the dust melts to a mass,

                    and the clods cling fast together?

                ³⁹Can you hunt prey for the lion,

                    fill the king of beast’s appetite,

                ⁴⁰when it crouches in its den,

                    lies in ambush in the covert?

                ⁴¹Who readies the raven’s prey

                    when its young cry out to God

                          and stray deprived of food?