Job 41

¹“Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook,

or press down its tongue with a cord?

²Can you put a rope in its nose,

or pierce its jaw with a hook?

³Will it make many supplications to you?

Will it speak soft words to you?

⁴Will it make a covenant with you

to be taken as your servant forever?

⁵Will you play with it as with a bird,

or will you put it on leash for your girls?

⁶Will traders bargain over it?

Will they divide it up among the merchants?

⁷Can you fill its skin with harpoons,

or its head with fishing spears?

⁸Lay hands on it;

think of the battle; you will not do it again!

⁹Any hope of capturing it will be disappointed;

were not even the gods overwhelmed at the sight of it?

¹⁰No one is so fierce as to dare to stir it up.

Who can stand before it?

¹¹Who can confront it and be safe?

—under the whole heaven, who?

¹²“I will not keep silence concerning its limbs,

or its mighty strength, or its splendid frame.

¹³Who can strip off its outer garment?

Who can penetrate its double coat of mail?

¹⁴Who can open the doors of its face?

There is terror all around its teeth.

¹⁵Its back is made of shields in rows,

shut up closely as with a seal.

¹⁶One is so near to another

that no air can come between them.

¹⁷They are joined one to another;

they clasp each other and cannot be separated.

¹⁸Its sneezes flash forth light,

and its eyes are like the eyelids of the dawn.

¹⁹From its mouth go flaming torches;

sparks of fire leap out.

²⁰Out of its nostrils comes smoke,

as from a boiling pot and burning rushes.

²¹Its breath kindles coals,

and a flame comes out of its mouth.

²²In its neck abides strength,

and terror dances before it.

²³The folds of its flesh cling together;

it is firmly cast and immovable.

²⁴Its heart is as hard as stone,

as hard as the lower millstone.

²⁵When it raises itself up the gods are afraid;

at the crashing they are beside themselves.

²⁶Though the sword reaches it, it does not avail,

nor does the spear, the dart, or the javelin.

²⁷It counts iron as straw,

and bronze as rotten wood.

²⁸The arrow cannot make it flee;

slingstones, for it, are turned to chaff.

²⁹Clubs are counted as chaff;

it laughs at the rattle of javelins.

³⁰Its underparts are like sharp potsherds;

it spreads itself like a threshing sledge on the mire.

³¹It makes the deep boil like a pot;

it makes the sea like a pot of ointment.

³²It leaves a shining wake behind it;

one would think the deep to be white-haired.

³³On earth it has no equal,

a creature without fear.

³⁴It surveys everything that is lofty;

it is king over all that are proud.”