Job 38
The Lord Speaks
1Then the Lord answered Job from the whirlwind. He said:23Who is this who obscures my counsel with ignorant words?4
5Get ready to answer me like a man; when I question you, you will inform me.6
7Where were you when I established the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.8
9Who fixed its dimensions? Certainly you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it?10
11What supports its foundations? Or who laid its cornerstone12
13while the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?14
15Who enclosed the sea behind doors when it burst from the womb,16
17when I made the clouds its garment and total darkness its blanket,18
19when I determined its boundaries and put its bars and doors in place,20
21when I declared, “You may come this far, but no farther; your proud waves stop here”?22
23Have you ever in your life commanded the morning or assigned the dawn its place,24
25so it may seize the edges of the earth and shake the wicked out of it?26
27The earth is changed as clay is by a seal; its hills stand out like the folds of a garment.28
29Light is withheld from the wicked, and the arm raised in violence is broken.30
31Have you traveled to the sources of the sea or walked in the depths of the oceans?32
33Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Have you seen the gates of deep darkness?34
35Have you comprehended the extent of the earth? Tell me, if you know all this.36
37Where is the road to the home of light? Do you know where darkness lives,38
39so you can lead it back to its border? Are you familiar with the paths to its home?40
41Don’t you know? You were already born; you have lived so long!42
43Have you entered the place where the snow is stored? Or have you seen the storehouses of hail,44
45which I hold in reserve for times of trouble, for the day of warfare and battle?46
47What road leads to the place where light is dispersed? Where is the source of the east wind that spreads across the earth?48
49Who cuts a channel for the flooding rain or clears the way for lightning,50
51to bring rain on an uninhabited land, on a desert with no human life,52
53to satisfy the parched wasteland and cause the grass to sprout?54
55Does the rain have a father? Who fathered the drops of dew?56
57Whose womb did the ice come from? Who gave birth to the frost of heaven58
59when water becomes as hard as stone, and the surface of the watery depths is frozen?60
61Can you fasten the chains of the Pleiades or loosen the belt of Orion?62
63Can you bring out the constellations in their season and lead the Bear and her cubs?64
65Do you know the laws of heaven? Can you impose its authority on earth?66
67Can you command the clouds so that a flood of water covers you?68
69Can you send out lightning bolts, and they go? Do they report to you, “Here we are”?70
71Who put wisdom in the heart or gave the mind understanding?72
73Who has the wisdom to number the clouds? Or who can tilt the water jars of heaven74
75when the dust hardens like cast metal and the clods of dirt stick together?76
77Can you hunt prey for a lioness or satisfy the appetite of young lions78
79when they crouch in their dens and lie in wait within their lairs?80
81Who provides the raven’s food when its young cry out to God and wander about for lack of food?82