Job38

¹Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said:

²“Who is this that obscures my plans 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 deepest darkness?

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 one lives, an uninhabited desert,

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 chains of the Pleiades? Can you loosen Orion’s belt?

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 gives the ibis wisdom or gives the rooster understanding?

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?