Job 38

The Lord Speaks

¹Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said:

²“Who is this that obscures my plans

with words without knowledge?

³Brace yourself like a man;

I will question you,

and you shall answer me.

⁴“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?

Tell me, if you understand.

⁵Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!

Who stretched a measuring line across it?

⁶On what were its footings set,

or who laid its cornerstone—

⁷while the morning stars sang together

and all the angels shouted for joy?

⁸“Who shut up the sea behind doors

when it burst forth from the womb,

⁹when I made the clouds its garment

and wrapped it in thick darkness,

¹⁰when I fixed limits for it

and set its doors and bars in place,

¹¹when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;

here is where your proud waves halt’?

¹²“Have you ever given orders to the morning,

or shown the dawn its place,

¹³that it might take the earth by the edges

and shake the wicked out of it?

¹⁴The earth takes shape like clay under a seal;

its features stand out like those of a garment.

¹⁵The wicked are denied their light,

and their upraised arm is broken.

¹⁶“Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea

or walked in the recesses of the deep?

¹⁷Have the gates of death been shown to you?

Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness?

¹⁸Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth?

Tell me, if you know all this.

¹⁹“What is the way to the abode of light?

And where does darkness reside?

²⁰Can you take them to their places?

Do you know the paths to their dwellings?

²¹Surely you know, for you were already born!

You have lived so many years!

²²“Have you entered the storehouses of the snow

or seen the storehouses of the hail,

²³which I reserve for times of trouble,

for days of war and battle?

²⁴What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed,

or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth?

²⁵Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain,

and a path for the thunderstorm,

²⁶to water a land where no one lives,

an uninhabited desert,

²⁷to satisfy a desolate wasteland

and make it sprout with grass?

²⁸Does the rain have a father?

Who fathers the drops of dew?

²⁹From whose womb comes the ice?

Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens

³⁰when the waters become hard as stone,

when the surface of the deep is frozen?

³¹“Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades?[#38:31 Septuagint; Hebrew beauty]

Can you loosen Orion’s belt?

³²Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons[#38:32 Or the morning star in its season]

or lead out the Bear with its cubs?

³³Do you know the laws of the heavens?

Can you set up God’s dominion over the earth?

³⁴“Can you raise your voice to the clouds

and cover yourself with a flood of water?

³⁵Do you send the lightning bolts on their way?

Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?

³⁶Who gives the ibis wisdom[#38:36 That is, wisdom about the flooding of the Nile]

or gives the rooster understanding?

³⁷Who has the wisdom to count the clouds?

Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens

³⁸when the dust becomes hard

and the clods of earth stick together?

³⁹“Do you hunt the prey for the lioness

and satisfy the hunger of the lions

⁴⁰when they crouch in their dens

or lie in wait in a thicket?

⁴¹Who provides food for the raven

when its young cry out to God

and wander about for lack of food?