Job 41
The LORD’s Power Shown in Leviathan
¹ “Can you pull in Leviathan with a hook or tie down his tongue with a rope?
² Can you put a cord through his nose or pierce his jaw with a hook?
³ Will he beg you for mercy or speak to you softly?
⁴ Will he make a covenant with you to take him as a slave for life?
⁵ Can you pet him like a bird or put him on a leash for your maidens?
⁶ Will traders barter for him or divide him among the merchants?
⁷ Can you fill his hide with harpoons or his head with fishing spears?
⁸ If you lay a hand on him, you will remember the battle and never repeat it!
⁹ Surely hope of overcoming him is false. Is not the sight of him overwhelming?
¹⁰ No one is so fierce as to rouse Leviathan. Then who is able to stand against Me?
¹¹ Who has given to Me that I should repay him?1 Everything under heaven is Mine.
¹² I cannot keep silent about his limbs, his power and graceful form.
¹³ Who can strip off his outer coat? Who can approach him with a bridle?2
¹⁴ Who can open his jaws, ringed by his fearsome teeth?
¹⁵ His rows of scales are his pride, tightly sealed together.
¹⁶ One scale is so near to another that no air can pass between them.
¹⁷ They are joined to one another; they clasp and cannot be separated.
¹⁸ His snorting flashes with light, and his eyes are like the rays of dawn.
¹⁹ Firebrands stream from his mouth; fiery sparks shoot forth!
²⁰ Smoke billows from his nostrils as from a boiling pot over burning reeds.
²¹ His breath sets coals ablaze, and flames pour from his mouth.
²² Strength resides in his neck, and dismay leaps before him.
²³ The folds of his flesh are tightly joined; they are firm and immovable.
²⁴ His chest is as hard as a rock, as hard as a lower millstone!
²⁵ When Leviathan rises up, the mighty are terrified; they withdraw before his thrashing.
²⁶ The sword that reaches him has no effect, nor does the spear or dart or arrow.
²⁷ He regards iron as straw and bronze as rotten wood.
²⁸ No arrow can make him flee; slingstones become like chaff to him.
²⁹ A club is regarded as straw, and he laughs at the sound of the lance.3
³⁰ His undersides are jagged potsherds, spreading out the mud like a threshing sledge.
³¹ He makes the depths seethe like a cauldron; he makes the sea like a jar of ointment.
³² He leaves a glistening wake behind him; one would think the deep had white hair!
³³ Nothing on earth is his equal— a creature devoid of fear!
³⁴ He looks down on all the haughty; he is king over all the proud.”