Job 38

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¹Then Yahweh called to Job out of a fierce storm and said,

²“Who is this who brings darkness to plans by means of words without knowledge?

³Now gird up your loins like a man for I will ask you questions, and you must answer me.

⁴Where were you when I laid the earth's foundations? Tell me, if you have so much understanding.

⁵Who determined its dimensions? Tell me, if you know. Who stretched the measuring line over it?

⁶On what were its foundations laid? Who laid its cornerstone

⁷when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

⁸Who shut up the sea with doors when it burst out, as if it had come out of the womb—

⁹when I made clouds its clothing, and thick darkness its swaddling bands?

¹⁰That was when I marked out for the sea my boundary, and when I placed its bars and doors,

¹¹and when I said to it, 'You may come this far, but no farther; here is where I will put a boundary to the pride of your waves.'

¹²Have you given orders to the morning, or caused the dawn to know its place,

¹³so that it might take hold of the edges of the earth and shake the wicked out of it?

¹⁴The earth is changed in appearance like clay changes under a seal; all things on it stand out clearly like the folds of a piece of clothing.

¹⁵From wicked people their 'light' is taken away; their uplifted arm is broken.

¹⁶Have you gone to the sources of the waters of the sea? Have you walked in the lowest parts of the deep?

¹⁷Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Have you seen the gates of the shadow of death?

¹⁸Have you understood the earth in its expanse? Tell me, if you know it all.

¹⁹Where is the way to the resting place of light— as for darkness, where is its place?

²⁰Can you lead light and darkness to their places of work? Can you find the way back to their houses for them?

²¹Undoubtedly you know, for you were born then; the number of your days is so large!

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

²³these things that I have kept for times of trouble, for days of battle and war?

²⁴What is the path to where the lightning bolts are distributed or to where the winds are scattered from the east over the earth?

²⁵Who has created the channels for the floods of rain, or who has made a path for the thunder,

²⁶to cause it to rain on lands where no person exists, and on the wilderness, in which there is no one,

²⁷to satisfy the devastated and desolate places, and to make the ground sprout with grass?

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

²⁹Out of whose womb did the ice come? Who bore the white frost out of the sky?

³⁰The waters hide themselves and become like stone; the surface of the deep becomes frozen.

³¹Can you fasten chains on the Pleiades, or undo the cords of Orion?

³²Can you lead the constellations to appear at their proper times? Can you guide the Bear with its children?

³³Do you know the regulations of the sky? Could you set in place the sky's rule over the earth?

³⁴Can you raise your voice up to the clouds, so that an abundance of rainwater may cover you?

³⁵Can you send out bolts of lightning that they may go out, that they say to you, 'Here we are'?

³⁶Who has put wisdom in the clouds or has given understanding to the mists?

³⁷Who can number the clouds by his skill? Who can pour out the water skins of the sky

³⁸when the dust runs into a hard mass and the clods of earth clump tightly together?

³⁹Can you hunt down a victim for a lioness or satisfy the appetite of her young lion cubs

⁴⁰when they are crouching in their dens and sheltering in hiding to lie in wait?

⁴¹Who provides victims for the ravens when their young ones cry out to God and stagger about for lack of food?