Job 39

¹ "Do you know when the mountain goats bring forth? Do you observe the calving of the hinds?

² Can you number the months that they fulfil, and do you know the time when they bring forth,

³ when they crouch, bring forth their offspring, and are delivered of their young?

⁴ Their young ones become strong, they grow up in the open; they go forth, and do not return to them.

⁵ "Who has let the wild ass go free? Who has loosed the bonds of the swift ass,

⁶ to whom I have given the steppe for his home, and the salt land for his dwelling place?

⁷ He scorns the tumult of the city; he hears not the shouts of the driver.

⁸ He ranges the mountains as his pasture, and he searches after every green thing.

⁹ "Is the wild ox willing to serve you? Will he spend the night at your crib?

¹⁰ Can you bind him in the furrow with ropes, or will he harrow the valleys after you?

¹¹ Will you depend on him because his strength is great, and will you leave to him your labor?

¹² Do you have faith in him that he will return, and bring your grain to your threshing floor?

¹³ "The wings of the ostrich wave proudly; but are they the pinions and plumage of love?

¹⁴ For she leaves her eggs to the earth, and lets them be warmed on the ground,

¹⁵ forgetting that a foot may crush them, and that the wild beast may trample them.

¹⁶ She deals cruelly with her young, as if they were not hers; though her labor be in vain, yet she has no fear;

¹⁷ because God has made her forget wisdom, and given her no share in understanding.

¹⁸ When she rouses herself to flee, she laughs at the horse and his rider.

¹⁹ "Do you give the horse his might? Do you clothe his neck with strength?

²⁰ Do you make him leap like the locust? His majestic snorting is terrible.

²¹ He paws in the valley, and exults in his strength; he goes out to meet the weapons.

²² He laughs at fear, and is not dismayed; he does not turn back from the sword.

²³ Upon him rattle the quiver, the flashing spear and the javelin.

²⁴ With fierceness and rage he swallows the ground; he cannot stand still at the sound of the trumpet.

²⁵ When the trumpet sounds, he says 'Aha!' He smells the battle from afar, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.

²⁶ "Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars, and spreads his wings toward the south?

²⁷ Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up and makes his nest on high?

²⁸ On the rock he dwells and makes his home in the fastness of the rocky crag.

²⁹ Thence he spies out the prey; his eyes behold it afar off.

³⁰ His young ones suck up blood; and where the slain are, there is he."