Job 38

¹ And the Lord made answer to Job out of the storm-wind, and said,

² Who is this who makes the purpose of God dark by words without knowledge?

³ Get your strength together like a man of war; I will put questions to you, and you will give me the answers.

⁴ Where were you when I put the earth on its base? Say, if you have knowledge.

⁵ By whom were its measures fixed? Say, if you have wisdom; or by whom was the line stretched out over it?

⁶ On what were its pillars based, or who put down its angle-stone,

⁷ When the morning stars made songs together, and all the sons of the gods gave cries of joy?

⁸ Or where were you when the sea came to birth, pushing out from its secret place;

⁹ When I made the cloud its robe, and put thick clouds as bands round it,

¹⁰ Ordering a fixed limit for it, with locks and doors;

¹¹ And said, So far you may come, and no farther; and here the pride of your waves will be stopped?

¹² Have you, from your earliest days, given orders to the morning, or made the dawn conscious of its place;

¹³ So that it might take a grip of the skirts of the earth, shaking all the evil-doers out of it?

¹⁴ It is changed like wet earth under a stamp, and is coloured like a robe;

¹⁵ And from the evil-doers their light is kept back, and the arm of pride is broken.

¹⁶ Have you come into the springs of the sea, walking in the secret places of the deep?

¹⁷ Have the doors of death been open to you, or have the door-keepers of the dark ever seen you?

¹⁸ Have you taken note of the wide limits of the earth? Say, if you have knowledge of it all.

¹⁹ Which is the way to the resting-place of the light, and where is the store-house of the dark;

²⁰ So that you might take it to its limit, guiding it to its house?

²¹ No doubt you have knowledge of it, for then you had come to birth, and the number of your days is great.

²² Have you come into the secret place of snow, or have you seen the store-houses of the ice-drops,

²³ Which I have kept for the time of trouble, for the day of war and fighting?

²⁴ Which is the way to the place where the wind is measured out, and the east wind sent out over the earth?

²⁵ By whom has the way been cut for the flowing of the rain, and the flaming of the thunder;

²⁶ Causing rain to come on a land where no man is living, on the waste land which has no people;

²⁷ To give water to the land where there is waste and destruction, and to make the dry land green with young grass?

²⁸ Has the rain a father? or who gave birth to the drops of night mist?

²⁹ Out of whose body came the ice? and who gave birth to the cold mist of heaven?

³⁰ The waters are joined together, hard as a stone, and the face of the deep is covered.

³¹ Are the bands of the Pleiades fixed by you, or are the cords of Orion made loose?

³² Do you make Mazzaroth come out in its right time, or are the Bear and its children guided by you?

³³ Have you knowledge of the laws of the heavens? did you give them rule over the earth?

³⁴ Is your voice sent up to the cloud, so that you may be covered by the weight of waters?

³⁵ Do you send out the thunder-flames, so that they may go, and say to you, Here we are?

³⁶ Who has put wisdom in the high clouds, or given knowledge to the lights of the north?

³⁷ By whose wisdom are the clouds numbered, or the water-skins of the heavens turned to the earth,

³⁸ When the earth becomes hard as metal, and is joined together in masses?

³⁹ Do you go after food for the she-lion, or get meat so that the young lions may have enough,

⁴⁰ When they are stretched out in their holes, and are waiting in the brushwood?

⁴¹ Who gives in the evening the meat he is searching for, when his young ones are crying to God; when the young lions with loud noise go wandering after their food?