Job
Job 38
1 After Elihu stopped speaking, the Lord said to Job through the whirlwind and the clouds,
Where Were You?
2 Who is this who hides counsel from me,
holding words shut up in his heart,
and thinks he can hide them from me?
3 Pull your belt tight like a man.
I will question you, and you will answer me.
4 Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
5 Who set its measurements, if you know?
Or who stretched the measuring line across it?
6 On what are its rings driven fast?
And who laid its cornerstone?
7 When the stars came into being,
all my messengers praised me with a loud voice.
Gates for the Sea
8 I fenced the sea in with gates
when it came bursting out of its mother’s womb.
9 I made a cloud its clothing
and wrapped it in mist for swaddling bands.
10 I set its limits,
putting bars and gates around it,
11 and I said to it, “This far you will come and no farther;
your waves will break inside yourself.”
12 Was it in your day that I put the morning light in order,
and the morning star saw its own appointed place,
13 to take hold of the wings of the earth
and shake the ungodly out of it?
14 Did you take clay out of the ground and shape a living creature,
and set it on the earth able to speak?
15 Did you take the light away from the ungodly
and break the arm of the arrogant?
The Gates of Death
16 Have you come to the spring of the sea
and walked in the tracks of the deep?
17 Do the gates of death swing open to you in fear?
Did the gatekeepers of Hades cower when they saw you?
18 Have you been taught how wide everything under heaven is?
Tell me, then, how great it is.
19 In what country does the light live,
and what is the place of darkness,
20 that you could lead me to their borders?
Do you even know the paths to them?
21 So I know you were born back then,
and the number of your years is great.
Storehouses of Snow
22 Have you come to the storehouses of snow?
Have you seen the storehouses of hail,
23 laid up for you against the hour of your enemies,
for the day of war and battle?
24 Where does the frost come out from?
Or from where is the south wind scattered over everything under heaven?
25 Who cut a channel for the driving rain,
and a road for the crash of thunder,
26 to rain on a land where no man is,
a wilderness with no human being in it,
27 to fill the trackless, unlived-in country,
and to make the young grass break out of the ground?
28 Who is the father of the rain?
Who has given birth to the clods of dew?
29 Out of whose belly does the ice come?
Who has borne the frost in the sky,
30 that comes down like running water?
Who has set the face of the deep hard?
The Bands of the Stars
31 Have you understood the band of the Pleiades?
Have you opened the fence of Orion?
32 Will you throw open the constellations in their season,
and lead the Evening Star out with its train of light?
33 Do you know the turnings of the sky,
or all that happens together under heaven?
34 Will you call a cloud with your voice,
and will it obey you with a shuddering weight of water?
35 Will you send the thunderbolts out, and will they go?
Will they say to you, “What is it?”
36 Who gave women the wisdom of weaving,
or the knowledge of embroidery?
37 Who is it that counts the clouds in wisdom,
and who tipped the sky down toward the earth?
38 The dust is poured out like soil,
and I have fitted it together like one squared stone to another.
Who Feeds the Lion and the Raven
39 Will you hunt prey for lions,
and fill the souls of serpents?
40 For they crouch in fear in their dens
and sit in the thickets, lying in wait.
41 Who prepared food for the raven?
For its young cry out to the Lord,
wandering about, looking for something to eat.