Job41

¹ “Can you catch Leviathan with a hook or put a noose around its jaw?

² Can you tie it with a rope through the nose or pierce its jaw with a spike?

³ Will it beg you for mercy or implore you for pity?

⁴ Will it agree to work for you, to be your slave for life?

⁵ Can you make it a pet like a bird, or give it to your little girls to play with?

⁶ Will merchants try to buy it to sell it in their shops?

⁷ Will its hide be hurt by spears or its head by a harpoon?

⁸ If you lay a hand on it, you will certainly remember the battle that follows. You won’t try that again!

⁹ No, it is useless to try to capture it. The hunter who attempts it will be knocked down.

¹⁰ And since no one dares to disturb it, who then can stand up to me?

¹¹ Who has given me anything that I need to pay back? Everything under heaven is mine.

¹² “I want to emphasize Leviathan’s limbs and its enormous strength and graceful form.

¹³ Who can strip off its hide, and who can penetrate its double layer of armor?

¹⁴ Who could pry open its jaws? For its teeth are terrible!

¹⁵ The scales on its back are like rows of shields tightly sealed together.

¹⁶ They are so close together that no air can get between them.

¹⁷ Each scale sticks tight to the next. They interlock and cannot be penetrated.

¹⁸ “When it sneezes, it flashes light! Its eyes are like the red of dawn.

¹⁹ Lightning leaps from its mouth; flames of fire flash out.

²⁰ Smoke streams from its nostrils like steam from a pot heated over burning rushes.

²¹ Its breath would kindle coals, for flames shoot from its mouth.

²² “The tremendous strength in Leviathan’s neck strikes terror wherever it goes.

²³ Its flesh is hard and firm and cannot be penetrated.

²⁴ Its heart is hard as rock, hard as a millstone.

²⁵ When it rises, the mighty are afraid, gripped by terror.

²⁶ No sword can stop it, no spear, dart, or javelin.

²⁷ Iron is nothing but straw to that creature, and bronze is like rotten wood.

²⁸ Arrows cannot make it flee. Stones shot from a sling are like bits of grass.

²⁹ Clubs are like a blade of grass, and it laughs at the swish of javelins.

³⁰ Its belly is covered with scales as sharp as glass. It plows up the ground as it drags through the mud.

³¹ “Leviathan makes the water boil with its commotion. It stirs the depths like a pot of ointment.

³² The water glistens in its wake, making the sea look white.

³³ Nothing on earth is its equal, no other creature so fearless.

³⁴ Of all the creatures, it is the proudest. It is the king of beasts.”