Job 38

The LORD Challenges Job

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

² “Who is this who obscures My counsel

by words without knowledge?^a

³ Now brace yourself^b like a man;

I will question you, and you shall inform Me.^c

⁴ Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?

Tell Me, if you have understanding.

⁵ Who fixed its measurements? Surely you know!

Or who stretched a measuring line across it?

⁶ On what were its foundations set,

or who laid its cornerstone,^d

⁷ while the morning stars sang together

and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

⁸ Who enclosed the sea behind doors

when it burst forth from the womb,

⁹ when I made the clouds its garment

and thick darkness its blanket,

¹⁰ when I fixed its boundaries

and set in place its bars and doors,

¹¹ and I declared: ‘You may come this far, but no farther;

here your proud waves must stop’?

¹² In your days, have you commanded the morning

or assigned the dawn its place,

¹³ that it might spread to the ends of the earth

and shake the wicked out of it?

¹⁴ The earth takes shape like clay under a seal;

its hills stand out like the folds of a garment.

¹⁵ Light is withheld from the wicked,

and their upraised arm is broken.

¹⁶ Have you journeyed to the vents of the sea

or walked in the trenches of the deep?

¹⁷ Have the gates of death been revealed to you?

Have you seen the gates of the shadow of death?

¹⁸ Have you surveyed the extent of the earth?

Tell Me, if you know all this.

¹⁹ Where is the way to the home of light?

Do you know where darkness resides,

²⁰ so you can lead it back to its border?

Do you know the paths to its home?

²¹ Surely you know, for you were already born!

And the number of your days is great!

²² Have you entered the storehouses of snow

or observed the storehouses of hail,

²³ which I hold in reserve for times of trouble,

for the day of war and battle?

²⁴ In which direction is the lightning dispersed,

or the east wind scattered over the earth?

²⁵ Who cuts a channel for the flood

or clears a path for the thunderbolt,

²⁶ to bring rain on a barren land,

on a desert where no man lives,

²⁷ to satisfy the parched wasteland

and make it sprout with tender grass?

²⁸ Does the rain have a father?

Who has begotten the drops of dew?

²⁹ From whose womb does the ice emerge?

Who gives birth to the frost from heaven,

³⁰ when the waters become hard as stone

and the surface of the deep is frozen?

³¹ Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades

or loosen the belt of Orion?

³² Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons^e

or lead out the Bear^f and her cubs?

³³ Do you know the laws of the heavens?

Can you set their dominion over the earth?

³⁴ Can you command the clouds

so that a flood of water covers you?

³⁵ Can you send the lightning bolts on their way?

Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?

³⁶ Who has put wisdom in the heart^g

or given understanding to the mind?

³⁷ Who has the wisdom to count the clouds?

Or who can tilt the water jars of the heavens

³⁸ when the dust hardens into a mass

and the clods of earth stick together?

³⁹ Can you hunt the prey for a lioness

or satisfy the hunger of young lions

⁴⁰ when they crouch in their dens

and lie in wait in the thicket?

⁴¹ Who provides food for the raven

when its young cry out to God

as they wander about for lack of food?