Job 38
Complete Jewish Bible
38 Then Adonai answered Iyov out of the storm:
2 “Who is this, darkening my plans
with his ignorant words?
3 Stand up like a man, and brace yourself;
I will ask questions; and you, give the answers!
4 “Where were you when I founded the earth?
Tell me, if you know so much.
5 Do you know who determined its dimensions
or who stretched the measuring line across it?
6 On what were its bases sunk,
or who laid its cornerstone,
7 when the morning stars sang together,
and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
8 “Who shut up the sea behind closed doors
when it gushed forth from the womb,
9 when I made the clouds its blanket
and dense fog its swaddling cloth,
10 when I made the breakers its boundary
set its gates and bars,
11 and said, ‘You may come this far, but no farther;
here your proud waves must stop’?
12 “Have you ever in your life called up the dawn
and made the morning know its place,
13 so that it could take hold of the edges of the earth
and shake the wicked out of it?
14 Then the earth is changed like clay under a seal,
until its colors are fixed like those of a garment.
15 But from the wicked the light is withheld,
and the arm raised [to strike] is broken.
16 “Have you gone down to the springs of the sea
or explored the limits of the deep?
17 Have the gates of death been revealed to you,
the gates of death-like darkness?
18 Have you surveyed the full extent of the earth?
Say so, if you know it all!
19 “Which way leads to where light has its home?
and darkness, where does it dwell?
20 If you knew, you could take each to its place
and set it on its homeward path.
21 You know, of course, because you were born then;
by now you must be very old!
22 “Have you gone into the storehouses for snow
or seen the storehouses for hail,
23 which I save for times of trouble,
for days of battle and war?
24 “By what path is light dispersed,
or the east wind poured out on the land?
25 Who cut a channel for the downpours,
or a way for the lightning and thunder,
26 causing it to rain where no one is,
in a desert without anyone there,
27 drenching the waste and desolate [ground],
till the tender grass sprouts?
28 Does the rain have a father?
Who is the father of dewdrops?
29 From whose womb does ice come?
Who gives birth to the frost of heaven,
30 when water becomes as hard as stone,
and the surface of the deep freezes solid?
31 “Can you tie up the cords of the Pleiades
or loosen the belt of Orion?
32 Can you lead out the constellations of the zodiac in their season
or guide the Great Bear and its cubs?
33 Do you know the laws of the sky?
Can you determine how they affect the earth?
34 “Can you raise your voice to the clouds
and make them cover you with a flood of rain?
35 Can you send lightning bolts on their way?
Will they say to you, ‘Here we are’?
36 “Who put wisdom in people’s inner parts?
Who gave understanding to the mind?
37 Who, by wisdom, can number the clouds?
Who can tilt the water-skins of heaven,
38 so that the dust becomes a mass [of mud],
and its clods stick together?
39 “Can you hunt prey for a lioness
or satisfy the appetite of the young lions,
40 when they crouch in their dens
or lie in ambush in their lairs?
41 Who provides food for the raven
when his young cry out to God
and wander about for lack of food?
Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern. All rights reserved.
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