Job 38 / 42
- 1Then the LORD answered Job out of the storm. He said:
- 2"Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge?
- 3Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me.
- 4"Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand.
- 5Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it?
- 6On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone-
- 7while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?
- 8"Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb,
- 9when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness,
- 10when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place,
- 11when I said, 'This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt'?
- 12"Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place,
- 13that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it?
- 14The earth takes shape like clay under a seal; its features stand out like those of a garment.
- 15The wicked are denied their light, and their upraised arm is broken.
- 16"Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep?
- 17Have the gates of death been shown to you? Have you seen the gates of the shadow of death ?
- 18Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth? Tell me, if you know all this.
- 19"What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside?
- 20Can you take them to their places? Do you know the paths to their dwellings?
- 21Surely you know, for you were already born! You have lived so many years!
- 22"Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail,
- 23which I reserve for times of trouble, for days of war and battle?
- 24What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed, or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth?
- 25Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain, and a path for the thunderstorm,
- 26to water a land where no man lives, a desert with no one in it,
- 27to satisfy a desolate wasteland and make it sprout with grass?
- 28Does the rain have a father? Who fathers the drops of dew?
- 29From whose womb comes the ice? Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens
- 30when the waters become hard as stone, when the surface of the deep is frozen?
- 31"Can you bind the beautiful Pleiades? Can you loose the cords of Orion?
- 32Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear with its cubs?
- 33Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set up God's dominion over the earth?
- 34"Can you raise your voice to the clouds and cover yourself with a flood of water?
- 35Do you send the lightning bolts on their way? Do they report to you, 'Here we are'?
- 36Who endowed the heart with wisdom or gave understanding to the mind ?
- 37Who has the wisdom to count the clouds? Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens
- 38when the dust becomes hard and the clods of earth stick together?
- 39"Do you hunt the prey for the lioness and satisfy the hunger of the lions
- 40when they crouch in their dens or lie in wait in a thicket?
- 41Who provides food for the raven when its young cry out to God and wander about for lack of food?