Job 38

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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