Job 38

1And YHWH answers Job out of the whirlwind and says:

2“Who [is] this—darkening counsel, || By words without knowledge?

3Now gird your loins as a man, || And I ask you, and you cause Me to know.

4Where were you when I founded the earth? Declare, if you have known understanding.

5Who placed its measures—if you know? Or who has stretched out a line on it?

6On what have its sockets been sunk? Or who has cast its cornerstone—

7In the singing together of [the] stars of morning, || When all [the] sons of God shout for joy?

8And He shuts up the sea with doors, || In its coming forth, it goes out from the womb.

9In My making a cloud its clothing, || And thick darkness its swaddling band,

10And I measure My statute over it, || And place bar and doors,

11And say, To here you come, and no more, || And a command is placed || On the pride of your billows.

12Have you commanded morning since your days? Do you cause the dawn to know its place?

13To take hold on the skirts of the earth, || And the wicked are shaken out of it,

14It turns itself as clay of a seal || And they station themselves as clothed.

15And their light is withheld from the wicked, || And the arm lifted up is broken.

16Have you come to springs of the sea? And in searching the deep || Have you walked up and down?

17Were the gates of death revealed to you? And do you see the gates of death-shade?

18You have understanding, || Even to the broad places of earth! Declare—if you have known it all.

19Where [is] this—the way light dwells? And darkness, where [is] this—its place?

20That you take it to its boundary, || And that you understand the paths of its house.

21You have known—for then you are born, || And the number of your days [are] many!

22Have you come to the treasure of snow? Indeed, do you see the treasures of hail,

23That I have kept back for a time of distress, || For a day of conflict and battle?

24Where [is] this, the way light is apportioned? It scatters an east wind over the earth.

25Who has divided a conduit for the flood? And a way for the lightning of the voices?

26To cause [it] to rain on a land [with] no man, || A wilderness [with] no man in it.

27To satisfy a desolate and ruined place, || And to cause to shoot up || The produce of the tender grass?

28Does the rain have a father? Or who has begotten the drops of dew?

29From whose belly came forth the ice? And the hoarfrost of the heavens, || Who has begotten it?

30Waters are hidden as a stone, || And the face of the deep is captured.

31Do you bind the chains of the Pleiades? Or do you open the cords of Orion?

32Do you bring out the twelve signs in [their] season? And do you comfort the Great Bear over her sons?

33Have you known the statutes of the heavens? Or do you appoint || Its dominion in the earth?

34Do you lift up your voice to the cloud, || And abundance of water covers you?

35Do you send out lightnings, and they go || And say to you, Behold us?

36Who has put wisdom in the inward parts? Or who has given understanding to the covered part?

37Who numbers the clouds by wisdom? And the bottles of the heavens, || Who causes to lie down,

38In the hardening of dust into hardness, || And clods cleave together?

39Do you hunt prey for a lion? And fulfill the desire of young lions?

40When they bow down in dens—Abide in a thicket for a covert?

41Who prepares for a raven his provision, || When his young ones cry to God? They wander without food.”