¹Then Adonai answered Iyov out of the storm:

²“Who is this, darkening my plans

with his ignorant words?

³Stand up like a man, and brace yourself;

I will ask questions; and you, give the answers!

⁴“Where were you when I founded the earth?

Tell me, if you know so much.

⁵Do you know who determined its dimensions

or who stretched the measuring line across it?

⁶On what were its bases sunk,

or who laid its cornerstone,

⁷when the morning stars sang together,

and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

⁸“Who shut up the sea behind closed doors

when it gushed forth from the womb,

⁹when I made the clouds its blanket

and dense fog its swaddling cloth,

¹⁰when I made the breakers its boundary

set its gates and bars,

¹¹and said, ‘You may come this far, but no farther;

here your proud waves must stop’?

¹²“Have you ever in your life called up the dawn

and made the morning know its place,

¹³so that it could take hold of the edges of the earth

and shake the wicked out of it?

¹⁴Then the earth is changed like clay under a seal,

until its colors are fixed like those of a garment.

¹⁵But from the wicked the light is withheld,

and the arm raised [to strike] is broken.

¹⁶“Have you gone down to the springs of the sea

or explored the limits of the deep?

¹⁷Have the gates of death been revealed to you,

the gates of death-like darkness?

¹⁸Have you surveyed the full extent of the earth?

Say so, if you know it all!

¹⁹“Which way leads to where light has its home?

and darkness, where does it dwell?

²⁰If you knew, you could take each to its place

and set it on its homeward path.

²¹You know, of course, because you were born then;

by now you must be very old!

²²“Have you gone into the storehouses for snow

or seen the storehouses for hail,

²³which I save for times of trouble,

for days of battle and war?

²⁴“By what path is light dispersed,

or the east wind poured out on the land?

²⁵Who cut a channel for the downpours,

or a way for the lightning and thunder,

²⁶causing it to rain where no one is,

in a desert without anyone there,

²⁷drenching the waste and desolate [ground],

till the tender grass sprouts?

²⁸Does the rain have a father?

Who is the father of dewdrops?

²⁹From whose womb does ice come?

Who gives birth to the frost of heaven,

³⁰when water becomes as hard as stone,

and the surface of the deep freezes solid?

³¹“Can you tie up the cords of the Pleiades

or loosen the belt of Orion?

³²Can you lead out the constellations of the zodiac in their season

or guide the Great Bear and its cubs?

³³Do you know the laws of the sky?

Can you determine how they affect the earth?

³⁴“Can you raise your voice to the clouds

and make them cover you with a flood of rain?

³⁵Can you send lightning bolts on their way?

Will they say to you, ‘Here we are’?

³⁶“Who put wisdom in people’s inner parts?

Who gave understanding to the mind?

³⁷Who, by wisdom, can number the clouds?

Who can tilt the water-skins of heaven,

³⁸so that the dust becomes a mass [of mud],

and its clods stick together?

³⁹“Can you hunt prey for a lioness

or satisfy the appetite of the young lions,

⁴⁰when they crouch in their dens

or lie in ambush in their lairs?

⁴¹Who provides food for the raven

when his young cry out to God

and wander about for lack of food?