Job 41

¹“Can you pull in Leviathan with a fishhook

or tie down its tongue with a rope?

²Can you put a cord through its nose

or pierce its jaw with a hook?

³Will it keep begging you for mercy?

Will it speak to you with gentle words?

⁴Will it make an agreement with you

for you to take it as your slave for life?

⁵Can you make a pet of it like a bird

or put it on a leash for the young women in your house?

⁶Will traders barter for it?

Will they divide it up among the merchants?

⁷Can you fill its hide with harpoons

or its head with fishing spears?

⁸If you lay a hand on it,

you will remember the struggle and never do it again!

⁹Any hope of subduing it is false;

the mere sight of it is overpowering.

¹⁰No one is fierce enough to rouse it.

Who then is able to stand against me?

¹¹Who has a claim against me that I must pay?

Everything under heaven belongs to me.

¹²“I will not fail to speak of Leviathan’s limbs,

its strength and its graceful form.

¹³Who can strip off its outer coat?

Who can penetrate its double coat of armor?

¹⁴Who dares open the doors of its mouth,

ringed about with fearsome teeth?

¹⁵Its back has rows of shields

tightly sealed together;

¹⁶each is so close to the next

that no air can pass between.

¹⁷They are joined fast to one another;

they cling together and cannot be parted.

¹⁸Its snorting throws out flashes of light;

its eyes are like the rays of dawn.

¹⁹Flames stream from its mouth;

sparks of fire shoot out.

²⁰Smoke pours from its nostrils

as from a boiling pot over burning reeds.

²¹Its breath sets coals ablaze,

and flames dart from its mouth.

²²Strength resides in its neck;

dismay goes before it.

²³The folds of its flesh are tightly joined;

they are firm and immovable.

²⁴Its chest is hard as rock,

hard as a lower millstone.

²⁵When it rises up, the mighty are terrified;

they retreat before its thrashing.

²⁶The sword that reaches it has no effect,

nor does the spear or the dart or the javelin.

²⁷Iron it treats like straw

and bronze like rotten wood.

²⁸Arrows do not make it flee;

slingstones are like chaff to it.

²⁹A club seems to it but a piece of straw;

it laughs at the rattling of the lance.

³⁰Its undersides are jagged potsherds,

leaving a trail in the mud like a threshing sledge.

³¹It makes the depths churn like a boiling caldron

and stirs up the sea like a pot of ointment.

³²It leaves a glistening wake behind it;

one would think the deep had white hair.

³³Nothing on earth is its equal—

a creature without fear.

³⁴It looks down on all that are haughty;

it is king over all that are proud.”