LEB - Job - 38

38:1  Then Yahweh answered Job from the storm, and he said,

38:2  “Who is this darkening counsel by words without knowledge?

38:3  ⌞Prepare yourself for a difficult task like a man⌟, and I will question you, and you shall declare to me.

38:4  “Where were you at my laying the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you possess understanding.

38:5  Who determined its measurement? Yes, you do know. Or who stretched the measuring line upon it?

38:6  On what were its bases sunk? Or who laid its cornerstone,

38:7  when the morning stars were singing together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

38:8  “Or who shut the sea in with doors at its bursting, when it went out of the womb,

38:9  at my making the clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling band,

38:10  and I prescribed my rule for it, and I set bars and doors,

38:11  and I said, ‘You shall come up to here, but you shall not go further, and here it will set a boundary ⌞for your proud surging waves⌟’?

38:12  “Have you ⌞ever in your life⌟ commanded the morning? Have you made the dawn know its place,

38:13  to take hold of the earth’s skirts so that the wicked might be shaken off from it?

38:14  It is changed like clay under a seal, and they appear like a garment.

38:15  And their light is withheld from the wicked, and their uplifted arm is broken.

38:16  “Have you entered into the sea’s sources? Or have you walked around in the recesses of the deep?

38:17  Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Or have you seen the gates of deep shadow?

38:18  Have you considered closely the earth’s vast expanse? Declare it, if you know all of it.

38:19  “Where then is the way where the light dwells? And where then is its place,

38:20  that you may take it to its territory, and that you might discern the paths to its home?

38:21  You know, for you were born then, and the number of your days is great.

38:22  Have you entered into the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail,

38:23  which I have reserved for the time of trouble, for the day of battle and war?

38:24  Where then is the way where the light is distributed, where he scatters the east wind upon the earth?

38:25  “Who has cut open a channel for the torrents and a way for the ⌞thunder bolts⌟,

38:26  to bring rain on a land ⌞where no one lives⌟, a desert ⌞where no humans live⌟,

38:27  to satisfy desert and wasteland, and to cause the ground to put forth the rising of grass?

38:28  Is there a father for the rain, or who fathered the drops of dew?

38:29  From whose womb did the ice come forth, and who fathered the frost of heaven?

38:30  Like stone the waters become hard, and the faces of the deep freeze.

38:31  “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades, or can you loosen the cords of Orion?

38:32  Can you lead forth the southern constellations at their appointed time, or can you lead the Bear with its children?

38:33  Do you know heaven’s statutes, or can you establish their rule on the earth?

38:34  Can you lift up your voice to the clouds so that a flood of water may cover you?

38:35  Can you send forth lightnings, that they may go? And will they say to you, ‘Here we are’?

38:36  Who has put wisdom in the ibis, or who has given understanding to the rooster?

38:37  Who can number the clouds with wisdom? Or who can tilt heaven’s jars,

38:38  at the flowing of the dust into a cast and the clods cling together?

38:39  “Can you hunt prey for the lion? And can you satisfy the hunger of strong lions

38:40  when they are crouched in the dens, when they lie in the thicket in an ambush?

38:41  Who prepares for the crow its prey, when its young ones cry to God for help, and they wander around ⌞for lack of food⌟?