Job 39

¹Do you know when the mountain goats give birth ? Do you observe the calving of the does ?

²Can you number the months that they fulfill , and do you know the time when they give birth ,

³when they crouch , bring forth their offspring , and are delivered of their young ?

⁴Their young ones become strong ; they grow up in the open ; they go out and do not return to them.

⁵Who has let the wild donkey go free ? Who has loosed the bonds of the swift donkey ,

⁶to whom I have given the arid plain for his home and the salt land for his dwelling place ?

⁷He scorns the tumult of the city ; he hears not the shouts of the driver .

⁸He ranges the mountains as his pasture , and he searches after every green thing .

⁹Is the wild ox willing to serve you? Will he spend the night at your manger ?

¹⁰Can you bind him in the furrow with ropes , or will he harrow the valleys after you?

¹¹Will you depend on him because his strength is great , and will you leave to him your labor ?

¹²Do you have faith in him that he will return your grain and gather it to your threshing floor ?

¹³The wings of the ostrich wave proudly , but are they the pinions and plumage of love ?

¹⁴For she leaves her eggs to the earth and lets them be warmed on the ground ,

¹⁵forgetting that a foot may crush them and that the wild beast may trample them.

¹⁶She deals cruelly with her young , as if they were not hers; though her labor be in vain , yet she has no fear ,

¹⁷because God has made her forget wisdom and given her no share in understanding .

¹⁸When she rouses herself to flee , she laughs at the horse and his rider .

¹⁹Do you give the horse his might ? Do you clothe his neck with a mane ?

²⁰Do you make him leap like the locust ? His majestic snorting is terrifying .

²¹He paws in the valley and exults in his strength ; he goes out to meet the weapons .

²²He laughs at fear and is not dismayed ; he does not turn back from the sword .

²³Upon him rattle the quiver , the flashing spear , and the javelin .

²⁴With fierceness and rage he swallows the ground ; he cannot stand still at the sound of the trumpet .

²⁵When the trumpet sounds, he says Aha ! He smells the battle from afar , the thunder of the captains , and the shouting .

²⁶Is it by your understanding that the hawk soars and spreads his wings toward the south ?

²⁷Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up and makes his nest on high ?

²⁸On the rock he dwells and makes his home , on the rocky crag and stronghold .

²⁹From there he spies out the prey ; his eyes behold it from far away .

³⁰His young ones suck up blood , and where the slain are, there is he .