Yahweh Challenges Job

38 Then[fn] Yahweh answered Job from the storm, and he said,

• 2 is this darkening counsel by words without knowledge?
• 3 [fn] and I will question you, and you shall declare to me.
• 4 the earth? Tell me, if you possess understanding.
• 5  Or who stretched the measuring line upon it?
• 6  Or who laid its cornerstone,
• 7 the morning stars were singing together and all the sons of God[fn] shouted for joy?
• 8 who shut the sea in with doors at its bursting, when it went out of the womb,
• 9 the clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling band,
• 10  and I set bars and doors,
• 11 [fn] you shall not go further, and here it will set a boundary[fn]
• 12 [fn] commanded the morning? Have you made the dawn know its place,
• 13  so that[fn] the wicked might be shaken off from it?
• 14 under a seal, and they appear like a garment.
• 15 the wicked, and their uplifted arm is broken.
• 16 the sea’s sources? Or have you walked around in the recesses of the deep?
• 17 the gates of death been revealed to you? Or have you seen the gates of deep shadow?
• 18 the earth’s vast expanse? Declare it, if you know all of it.
• 19 [fn] is the way where the light dwells? And where then[fn] is its place,
• 20  and that you might discern the paths to its home?
• 21  and the number of your days is great.
• 22 the storehouses of the snow, or[fn] have you seen the storehouses of the hail,
• 23 the time of trouble, for the day of battle and war?
• 24 [fn] is the way where the light is distributed, where he scatters the east wind upon the earth?
• 25  and a way for the[fn]
• 26 [fn] a desert[fn]
• 27  and to cause the ground to put forth the rising of grass?
• 28  or who fathered the drops of dew?
• 29  and who fathered the frost of heaven?
• 30 the waters become hard, and the faces of the deep freeze.
• 31 the chains of the Pleiades, or can you loosen the cords of Orion?
• 32  or[fn] can you lead the Bear with its children?
• 33  or can you establish their rule on the earth?
• 34  so that[fn] a flood of water may cover you?
• 35  And will they say to you, ‘Here we are’?
• 36 [fn] or who has given understanding to the rooster?[fn]
• 37 the clouds with wisdom? Or[fn] who can tilt heaven’s jars,
• 38 the flowing of the dust into a cast and the clods cling together?
• 39 the lion? And can you satisfy the hunger of strong lions
• 40  when they lie in the thicket in an ambush?
• 41  when its young ones cry to God for help,
• and they wander around[fn]