Job 39

¹“Do you know when the mountain goats give birth?

Do you observe the calving of the deer?

²Can you number the months that they fulfill,

and do you know the time when they give birth,

³when they crouch to give birth to their offspring,

and are delivered of their young?

⁴Their young ones become strong, they grow up in the open;

they go forth, and do not return to them.

⁵“Who has let the wild ass go free?

Who has loosed the bonds of the swift ass,

⁶to which I have given the steppe for its home,

the salt land for its dwelling place?

⁷It scorns the tumult of the city;

it does not hear the shouts of the driver.

⁸It ranges the mountains as its pasture,

and it searches after every green thing.

⁹“Is the wild ox willing to serve you?

Will it spend the night at your crib?

¹⁰Can you tie it in the furrow with ropes,

or will it harrow the valleys after you?

¹¹Will you depend on it because its strength is great,

and will you hand over your labor to it?

¹²Do you have faith in it that it will return,

and bring your grain to your threshing floor?

¹³“The ostrich’s wings flap wildly,

though its pinions lack plumage.

¹⁴For it leaves its eggs to the earth,

and lets them be warmed on the ground,

¹⁵forgetting that a foot may crush them,

and that a wild animal may trample them.

¹⁶It deals cruelly with its young, as if they were not its own;

though its labor should be in vain, yet it has no fear;

¹⁷because God has made it forget wisdom,

and given it no share in understanding.

¹⁸When it spreads its plumes aloft,

it laughs at the horse and its rider.

¹⁹“Do you give the horse its might?

Do you clothe its neck with mane?

²⁰Do you make it leap like the locust?

Its majestic snorting is terrible.

²¹It paws violently, exults mightily;

it goes out to meet the weapons.

²²It laughs at fear, and is not dismayed;

it does not turn back from the sword.

²³Upon it rattle the quiver,

the flashing spear, and the javelin.

²⁴With fierceness and rage it swallows the ground;

it cannot stand still at the sound of the trumpet.

²⁵When the trumpet sounds, it says ‘Aha!’

From a distance it smells the battle,

the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.

²⁶“Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars,

and spreads its wings toward the south?

²⁷Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up

and makes its nest on high?

²⁸It lives on the rock and makes its home

in the fastness of the rocky crag.

²⁹From there it spies the prey;

its eyes see it from far away.

³⁰Its young ones suck up blood;

and where the slain are, there it is.”