Job 39

¹ Do you know about the birth of the mountain goats, watch for the birth pangs of the hinds,

² Number the months that they must fulfill, and fix the time of their bringing forth?

³ They crouch down and bear their young; they deliver their progeny in the desert.

⁴ When their offspring thrive and grow, they leave and do not return.

⁵ Who has given the wild ass his freedom, and who has loosed him from bonds?

⁶ I have made the wilderness his home and the salt flats his dwelling.

⁷ He scoffs at the uproar of the city, and hears no shouts of a driver.

⁸ He ranges the mountains for pasture, and seeks out every patch of green.

⁹ Will the wild ox consent to serve you, and to pass the nights by your manger?

¹⁰ Will a rope bind him in the furrow, and will he harrow the valleys after you?

¹¹ Will you trust him for his great strength and leave to him the fruits of your toil?

¹² Can you rely on him to thresh out your grain and gather in the yield of your threshing floor?

¹³ The wings of the ostrich beat idly; her plumage is lacking in pinions.

¹⁴ When she leaves her eggs on the ground and deposits them in the sand,

¹⁵ Unmindful that a foot may crush them, that the wild beasts may trample them,

¹⁶ She cruelly disowns her young and ruthlessly makes nought of her brood;

¹⁷ For God has withheld wisdom from her and has given her no share in understanding.

¹⁸ Yet in her swiftness of foot she makes sport of the horse and his rider.

¹⁹ Do you give the horse his strength, and endow his neck with splendor?

²⁰ Do you make the steed to quiver while his thunderous snorting spreads terror?

²¹ He jubilantly paws the plain and rushes in his might against the weapons.

²² He laughs at fear and cannot be deterred; he turns not back from the sword.

²³ Around him rattles the quiver, flashes the spear and the javelin.

²⁴ Frenzied and trembling he devours the ground; he holds not back at the sound of the trumpet,

²⁵ but at each blast he cries, "Aha!" Even from afar he scents the battle, the roar of the chiefs and the shouting.

²⁶ Is it by your discernment that the hawk soars, that he spreads his wings toward the south?

²⁷ Does the eagle fly up at your command to build his nest aloft?

²⁸ On the cliff he dwells and spends the night, on the spur of the cliff or the fortress.

²⁹ From thence he watches for his prey; his eyes behold it afar off.

³⁰ His young ones greedily drink blood; where the slain are, there is he.