Job 38

The LORD answers from a whirlwind

¹Then the LORD answered Job from the whirlwind:

²Who is this darkening counsel with words lacking knowledge?

³Prepare yourself like a man; I will interrogate you, and you will respond to me.

The establishing of order

⁴Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundations? Tell me if you know.

⁵Who set its measurements? Surely you know. Who stretched a measuring tape on it?

⁶On what were its footings sunk; who laid its cornerstone,

⁷while the morning stars sang in unison and all the divine beings shouted?

⁸Who enclosed the Sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb,

⁹when I made the clouds its garment, the dense clouds its wrap,

¹⁰when I imposed my limit for it, put on a bar and doors

¹¹and said, “You may come this far, no farther;” “here your proud waves stop”?

¹²In your lifetime have you commanded the morning, informed the dawn of its place

¹³so it would take hold of earth by its edges and shake the wicked out of it?

¹⁴Do you turn it over like clay for a seal, so it stands out like a colorful garment?

¹⁵Light is withheld from the wicked, the uplifted arm broken.

The vast beyond

¹⁶Have you gone to the sea’s sources, walked in the chamber of the deep?

¹⁷Have death’s gates been revealed to you; can you see the gates of deep darkness?

¹⁸Have you surveyed earth’s expanses? Tell me if you know everything about it.

¹⁹Where’s the road to the place where light dwells; darkness, where’s it located?

²⁰Can you take it to its territory; do you know the paths to its house?

²¹You know, for you were born then; you have lived such a long time!

²²Have you gone to snow’s storehouses, seen the storehouses of hail

²³that I have reserved for a time of distress, for a day of battle and war?

²⁴What is the way to the place where light is divided up; the east wind scattered over earth?

Meteorological facts

²⁵Who cut a channel for the downpours and a way for blasts of thunder

²⁶to bring water to uninhabited land, a desert with no human

²⁷to saturate dry wasteland and make grass sprout?

²⁸Has the rain a father who brought forth drops of dew?

²⁹From whose belly does ice come; who gave birth to heaven’s frost?

³⁰Water hardens like stone; the surface of the deep thickens.

³¹Can you bind Pleiades’ chains or loosen the reins of Orion?

³²Can you guide the stars at their proper times, lead the Bear with her cubs?

³³Do you know heaven’s laws, or can you impose its rule on earth?

³⁴Can you issue an order to the clouds so their abundant waters cover you?

³⁵Can you send lightning so that it goes and then says to you, “I’m here”?

³⁶Who put wisdom in remote places, or who gave understanding to a rooster?

³⁷Who is wise enough to count the clouds, and who can tilt heaven’s water containers

³⁸so that dust becomes mud and clods of dirt adhere?

Lion and raven

³⁹Can you hunt prey for the lion or fill the cravings of lion cubs?

⁴⁰They lie in their den, lie in ambush in their lair.

⁴¹Who provides food for the raven when its young cry to God, move about without food?