Job 38

¹ Then from the heart of the tempest Yahweh gave Job his answer. He said:

² Who is this, obscuring my intentions with his ignorant words?

³ Brace yourself like a fighter; I am going to ask the questions, and you are to inform me!

⁴ Where were you when I laid the earth's foundations? Tel me, since you are so wel -informed!

⁵ Who decided its dimensions, do you know? Or who stretched the measuring line across it?

⁶ What supports its pil ars at their bases? Who laid its cornerstone

⁷ to the joyful concert of the morning stars and unanimous acclaim of the sons of God?

⁸ Who pent up the sea behind closed doors when it leapt tumultuous from the womb,

⁹ when I wrapped it in a robe of mist and made black clouds its swaddling bands;

¹⁰ when I cut out the place I had decreed for it and imposed gates and a bolt?

¹¹ 'Come so far,' I said, 'and no further; here your proud waves must break!'

¹² Have you ever in your life given orders to the morning or sent the dawn to its post,

¹³ to grasp the earth by its edges and shake the wicked out of it?

¹⁴ She turns it as red as a clay seal, she tints it as though it were a dress,

¹⁵ stealing the light from evil-doers and breaking the arm raised to strike.

¹⁶ Have you been right down to the sources of the sea and walked about at the bottom of the Abyss?

¹⁷ Have you been shown the gates of Death, have you seen the janitors of the Shadow dark as death?

¹⁸ Have you an inkling of the extent of the earth? Tell me al about it if you have!

¹⁹ Which is the way to the home of the Light, and where does darkness live? -

²⁰ You could then show them the way to their proper places, you could put them on the path homeagain!

²¹ If you do know, you must have been born when they were, you must be very old by now!

²² Have you visited the place where the snow is stored? Have you seen the stores of hail,

²³ which I keep for times of distress, for days of battle and war?

²⁴ From which direction does the lightning fork, where in the world does the east wind blow itself out?

²⁵ Who bores a channel for the downpour or clears the way for the rol ing thunder

²⁶ so that rain may fal on lands where no one lives, and the deserts void of human dwel ing,

²⁷ to meet the needs of the lonely wastes and make grass sprout on the thirsty ground?

²⁸ Has the rain a father? Who begets the dewdrops?

²⁹ What womb brings forth the ice, who gives birth to the frost of heaven,

³⁰ when the waters grow hard as stone and the surface of the deep congeals?

³¹ Can you fasten the harness of the Pleiades, or untie Orion's bands?

³² Can you guide the Crown season by season and show the Bear and its cubs which way to go?

³³ Have you grasped the celestial laws? Could you make their writ run on the earth?

³⁴ Can your voice carry as far as the clouds and make the pent-up waters do your bidding?

³⁵ Will lightning flashes come at your command and answer, 'Here we are'?

³⁶ Who endowed the ibis with wisdom and gave the cock his intel igence?

³⁷ Whose skil details every cloud and tilts the water-skins of heaven

³⁸ until the dust solidifies and the cracks in the ground close up?

³⁹ Do you go hunting prey for the lioness; do you satisfy the hunger of young lions

⁴⁰ where they crouch in their den, waiting eagerly in the bushes?

⁴¹ Who makes provision for the raven when his little ones cry out to God craning their necks in search offood?