Job 38

38:1

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

38:2

“Who is this who obscures My counsel by words without knowledge?

38:3

Now brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall inform Me.

38:4

Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding.

38:5

Who fixed its measurements? Surely you know! Or who stretched a measuring line across it?

38:6

On what were its foundations set, or who laid its cornerstone,

38:7

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

38:8

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

38:9

when I made the clouds its garment and thick darkness its blanket,

38:10

when I fixed its boundaries and set in place its bars and doors,

38:11

and I declared: ‘You may come this far, but no farther; here your proud waves must stop’?

38:12

In your days, have you commanded the morning or assigned the dawn its place,

38:13

that it might spread to the ends of the earth and shake the wicked out of it?

38:14

The earth takes shape like clay under a seal; its hills stand out like the folds of a garment.

38:15

Light is withheld from the wicked, and their upraised arm is broken.

38:16

Have you journeyed to the vents of the sea or walked in the trenches of the deep?

38:17

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

38:18

Have you surveyed the extent of the earth? Tell Me, if you know all this.

38:19

Where is the way to the home of light? Do you know where darkness resides,

38:20

so you can lead it back to its border? Do you know the paths to its home?

38:21

Surely you know, for you were already born! And the number of your days is great!

38:22

Have you entered the storehouses of snow or observed the storehouses of hail,

38:23

which I hold in reserve for times of trouble, for the day of war and battle?

38:24

In which direction is the lightning dispersed, or the east wind scattered over the earth?

38:25

Who cuts a channel for the flood or clears a path for the thunderbolt,

38:26

to bring rain on a barren land, on a desert where no man lives,

38:27

to satisfy the parched wasteland and make it sprout with tender grass?

38:28

Does the rain have a father? Who has begotten the drops of dew?

38:29

From whose womb does the ice emerge? Who gives birth to the frost from heaven,

38:30

when the waters become hard as stone and the surface of the deep is frozen?

38:31

Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades or loosen the belt of Orion?

38:32

Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear and her cubs?

38:33

Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set their dominion over the earth?

38:34

Can you command the clouds so that a flood of water covers you?

38:35

Can you send the lightning bolts on their way? Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?

38:36

Who has put wisdom in the heart or given understanding to the mind?

38:37

Who has the wisdom to count the clouds? Or who can tilt the water jars of the heavens

38:38

when the dust hardens into a mass and the clods of earth stick together?

38:39

Can you hunt the prey for a lioness or satisfy the hunger of young lions

38:40

when they crouch in their dens and lie in wait in the thicket?

38:41

Who provides food for the raven when its young cry out to God as they wander about for lack of food?