Job 38

1Then Yahweh answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:

2Who is this who darkens counsel with words without knowledge?

3Gird up your loins like a man; I will question you, and you shall make it known to me.

4Where were you when I founded the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.

5Who set its dimensions—surely you know—or who stretched a measuring line over 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?

8Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb,

9when I made a cloud its garment and thick darkness its swaddling cloth,

10when I set a boundary for it and set bars and doors,

11and I said, ‘You may come this far, and no farther; here your proud waves shall stop.’

12Have you ever commanded the morning and made the dawn know its place?

13that it might take hold of the edges of the earth, and the wicked be shaken out of it,

14It changes like clay under a seal, and they stand out like a garment.

15Their light is withheld from the wicked, and the raised arm is broken.

16Have you come to the springs of the sea, or walked in the recesses of the deep?

17Have the gates of death been revealed to you, or have you seen the gates of deep darkness?

18Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth? Tell me, if you know it all.

19Where is the way to the dwelling of light, and where is the place of darkness,

20that you might take it to its boundary, and that you might discern the paths to its house?

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

22Have you entered the storehouses of snow, or have you seen the storehouses of hail?

23I have reserved them for a time of distress, for a day of battle and war.

24Where is the way by which light is distributed, or the east wind scattered over the earth?

25Who has cut a channel for the flood, or a path for the thunderbolt,

26to make it rain on a land with no one in it, on a wilderness with no human being in it,

27to satisfy the desolate wasteland, and make grass spring up?

28Does rain have a father, or who has fathered the drops of dew?

29From whose womb did the ice come forth, and who gave birth to the frost of heaven?

30The waters become hard like stone, and the surface of the deep congeals.

31Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades, or loosen the cords of Orion?

32Can you bring out Mazzaroth in its season, or guide Ayish along with her children?

33Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you establish their rule on the earth?

34Can you raise your voice to the clouds, so that an abundance of water covers you?

35Can you send out flashes of lightning so that they go and say to you, “Here we are”?

36Who has put wisdom in the inward parts, or who has given understanding to the mind?

37Who can count the clouds with wisdom, or tip over the jars of the heavens?

38when the dust hardens into a mass, and the clods stick together?

39Do you hunt prey for the lioness, and satisfy the appetite of the young lions,

40when they crouch in their dens and lie in wait under cover?

41Who prepares its prey for the raven when its young cry out to God and wander about for lack of food?