Job 39 / 42
- 1
"Do you know when the mountain goats give birth?
Do you observe the calving of the does?
- 2
Can you number the months that they fulfill,
and do you know the time when they give birth,
- 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 out and do not return to them.
- 5
"Who has let the wild donkey go free?
Who has loosed the bonds of the swift donkey,
- 6
to whom I have given the arid plain 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 manger?
- 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 your grain
and gather it 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 a mane?
- 20
Do you make him leap like the locust?
His majestic snorting is terrifying.
- 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 understanding 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,
on the rocky crag and stronghold.
- 29
From there he spies out the prey;
his eyes behold it from far away.
- 30
His young ones suck up blood,
and where the slain are, there is he."