✧1Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, ✧2“Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge? ✧3Brace yourself like a man, for I will question you, then you answer me! ✧4“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if you have understanding. ✧5Who determined its measures, if you know? Or who stretched the line on it? ✧6What were its foundations fastened on? Or who laid its cornerstone, ✧7when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? ✧8“Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it broke out of the womb, ✧9when I made clouds its garment, and wrapped it in thick darkness, ✧
World English Bible (WEB). World English Bible (Protestant edition). Public domain.
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marked out for it my bound, set bars and doors,
✧11and said, ‘You may come here, but no further. Your proud waves shall be stopped here’?
✧12“Have you commanded the morning in your days, and caused the dawn to know its place,
✧13that it might take hold of the ends of the earth, and shake the wicked out of it?
✧14It is changed as clay under the seal, and presented as a garment.
✧15From the wicked, their light is withheld. The high arm is broken.
✧16“Have you entered into the springs of the sea? Or have you walked in the recesses of the deep?
✧17Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Or have you seen the gates of the shadow of death?
✧18Have you comprehended the earth in its width? Declare, if you know it all.
✧19“What is the way to the dwelling of light? As for darkness, where is its place,
✧20that you should take it to its bound, that you should discern the paths to its house?
✧21Surely you know, for you were born then, and the number of your days is great!
✧22Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail,
✧23which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war?
✧24By what way is the lightning distributed, or the east wind scattered on the earth?
✧25Who has cut a channel for the flood water, or the path for the thunderstorm,
✧26to cause it to rain on a land where there is no man, on the wilderness, in which there is no man,
✧27to satisfy the waste and desolate ground, to cause the tender grass to grow?
✧28Does the rain have a father? Or who fathers the drops of dew?
✧29Whose womb did the ice come out of? Who has given birth to the gray frost of the sky?
✧30The waters become hard like stone, when the surface of the deep is frozen.
✧31“Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades, or loosen the cords of Orion?
✧32Can you lead the constellations out in their season? Or can you guide the Bear with her cubs?
✧33Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you establish its dominion over the earth?
✧34“Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, that abundance of waters may cover you?
✧35Can you send out lightnings, that they may go? Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?
✧36Who has put wisdom in the inward parts? Or who has given understanding to the mind?
✧37Who can count the clouds by wisdom? Or who can pour out the containers of the sky,
✧38when the dust runs into a mass, and the clods of earth stick together?
✧39“Can you hunt the prey for the lioness, or satisfy the appetite of the young lions,
✧40when they crouch in their dens, and lie in wait in the thicket?
✧41Who provides for the raven his prey, when his young ones cry to God, and wander for lack of food?