Job 38

The Lord Speaks

¹Then the Lord answered Job from the whirlwind. ^a He said:

²Who is this who obscures my counsel

with ignorant words? ^b

³Get ready to answer me like a man;

when I question ^c you, you will inform me.

⁴Where were you when I established ^d the earth?

Tell me, if you have ^e understanding.

⁵Who fixed its dimensions? Certainly you know!

Who stretched a measuring line across it?

⁶What supports its foundations?

Or who laid its cornerstone

⁷while the morning stars sang together

and all the sons of God ^f shouted for joy?

⁸Who enclosed the sea behind doors

when it burst from the womb,

⁹when I made the clouds its garment

and total darkness its blanket, ^g,^h

¹⁰when I determined its boundaries ⁱ

and put its bars and doors in place,

¹¹when I declared, “You may come this far, but no farther;

your proud waves stop here”?

¹²Have you ever in your life commanded the morning

or assigned the dawn its place,

¹³so it may seize the edges of the earth

and shake the wicked out of it?

¹⁴The earth is changed as clay is by a seal;

its hills stand out like the folds of a garment.

¹⁵Light ^j is withheld from the wicked,

and the arm raised in violence is broken.

¹⁶Have you traveled to the sources of the sea

or walked in the depths of the oceans?

¹⁷Have the gates ^k of death been revealed to you?

Have you seen the gates of deep darkness?

¹⁸Have you comprehended the extent of the earth?

Tell me, if you know all this.

¹⁹Where is the road to the home of light?

Do you know where darkness lives,

²⁰so you can lead it back to its border?

Are you familiar with the paths to its home?

²¹Don’t you know? You were already born; ^l

you have lived so long! ^m

²²Have you entered the place where the snow is stored?

Or have you seen the storehouses of hail, ⁿ

²³which I hold in reserve for times of trouble,

for the day of warfare and battle? ^o

²⁴What road leads to the place where light is dispersed? ^p

Where is the source of the east wind that spreads across the earth?

²⁵Who cuts a channel for the flooding rain

or clears the way for lightning,

²⁶to bring rain on an uninhabited land,

on a desert with no human life, ^q

²⁷to satisfy the parched wasteland

and cause the grass to sprout? ^r

²⁸Does the rain have a father?

Who fathered the drops of dew? ^s

²⁹Whose womb did the ice come from?

Who gave birth to the frost of heaven

³⁰when water becomes as hard as stone, ^t

and the surface of the watery depths is frozen? ^u

³¹Can you fasten the chains of the Pleiades

or loosen the belt of Orion?

³²Can you bring out the constellations ^v in their season

and lead the Bear ^w and her cubs? ^x

³³Do you know the laws ^y of heaven?

Can you impose its ^z authority on earth?

³⁴Can you command ^aa the clouds

so that a flood of water covers you? ^ab

³⁵Can you send out lightning ^ac bolts, and they go?

Do they report to you, “Here we are”?

³⁶Who put wisdom ^ad in the heart ^ae

or gave the mind understanding?

³⁷Who has the wisdom to number the clouds?

Or who can tilt the water jars of heaven

³⁸when the dust hardens like cast metal

and the clods of dirt stick together?

³⁹Can you hunt prey for a lioness

or satisfy the appetite of young lions ^af

⁴⁰when they crouch in their dens

and lie in wait within their lairs?

⁴¹Who provides the raven’s food ^ag

when its young cry out to God

and wander about for lack of food?