Job
Job 39
The Wild Goats and the Deer
1 Do you know the time when the wild goats of the rock give birth?
Have you watched over the labor of the deer?
2 Have you counted the full months of their carrying?
Have you loosed their birth pangs?
3 Have you reared their young for them, free of fear?
Will you send their pangs away?
4 Their young will break away from them;
they will be multiplied with offspring;
they will go out and never come back to them.
The Wild Donkey
5 Who let the wild donkey go free?
Who untied its ropes?
6 I made the wilderness its living place
and the salt flats its home.
7 It laughs at the crowding of the city
and never hears the shouting of the tax collector.
8 It scouts the mountains for its pasture
and goes searching after anything green.
9 Will the one-horned ox be willing to be your slave,
or to sleep beside your feeding trough?
10 Will you tie its yoke on with straps?
Will it drag your furrows down the field?
11 Do you trust it because its strength is great?
Will you hand your work over to it?
12 Will you believe that it will bring your seed back to you,
and carry it in to your threshing floor?
The Bird That Forgets
13 A wing of birds that take delight — neelasa —
when she conceives asida and nessa:
14 she will leave her eggs on the ground
and warm them in the dust,
15 and she has forgotten that a foot may scatter them
and the wild animals of the field trample them.
16 She has hardened herself against her young, as if they were not hers;
her labor came to nothing, and it does not frighten her,
17 because God kept wisdom silent toward her
and gave her no share in understanding.
18 But when her time comes she lifts herself up on high;
she laughs at the horse and its rider.
The Horse
19 Was it you who put power around the horse
and dressed his neck in terror?
20 Did you cover him in full armor,
and the glory of his chest with daring?
21 He digs at the plain and glories in it;
he goes out onto the plain in his strength.
22 He meets the arrow and laughs;
he will not turn back from iron.
23 Bow and sword glory over him,
24 and in his rage he wipes the ground away;
he will not believe it until the trumpet sounds.
25 When the trumpet sounds he says, “Well done!”
and from far off he smells the war, with leaping and shouting.
The Hawk and the Eagle
26 Is it by your knowledge that the hawk stands still,
wings spread and unmoving, looking out toward the south?
27 Is it at your order that the eagle climbs,
and the vulture settles down on its nest and lodges
28 on a jutting rock, in a hidden place?
29 From there it looks for its food;
its eyes watch from far off.
30 Its young are smeared with blood;
and wherever the dead lie, they are there at once.
31 And the Lord God answered Job and said,
32 Will the man who argues with the Sufficient One turn judgment aside?
Will the man who accuses God answer for it?
33 And Job answered and said to the Lord,
34 Why am I still on trial, when I am being warned,
when I accuse the Lord and hear such things as these, and am nothing?
What answer can I give to this?
I will put my hand over my mouth.
35 I have spoken once;
I will not add a second time.