✧1“Do you know the time when the mountain goats give birth? Do you watch when the doe bears fawns? ✧2Can you count the months that they fulfill? Or do you know the time when they give birth? ✧3They bow themselves. They bear their young. They end their labor pains. ✧4Their young ones become strong. They grow up in the open field. They go out, and don’t return again. ✧5“Who has set the wild donkey free? Or who has loosened the bonds of the swift donkey, ✧6whose home I have made the wilderness, and the salt land his dwelling place? ✧7He scorns the tumult of the city, neither does he hear the shouting of the driver. ✧8The range of the mountains is his pasture. He searches after every green thing. ✧9“Will the wild ox be content to serve you? Or will he stay by your feeding trough?
World English Bible (WEB). World English Bible (Protestant edition). Public domain.
✧10Can you hold the wild ox in the furrow with his harness? Or will he till the valleys after you?
✧11Will you trust him, because his strength is great? Or will you leave to him your labor?
✧12Will you confide in him, that he will bring home your seed, and gather the grain of your threshing floor?
✧13“The wings of the ostrich wave proudly, but are they the feathers and plumage of love?
✧14For she leaves her eggs on the earth, warms them in the dust,
✧15and forgets that the foot may crush them, or that the wild animal may trample them.
✧16She deals harshly with her young ones, as if they were not hers. Though her labor is in vain, she is without fear,
✧17because God has deprived her of wisdom, neither has he imparted to her understanding.
✧18When she lifts up herself on high, she scorns the horse and his rider.
✧19“Have you given the horse might? Have you clothed his neck with a quivering mane?
✧20Have you made him to leap as a locust? The glory of his snorting is awesome.
✧21He paws in the valley, and rejoices in his strength. He goes out to meet the armed men.
✧22He mocks at fear, and is not dismayed, neither does he turn back from the sword.
✧23The quiver rattles against him, the flashing spear and the javelin.
✧24He eats up the ground with fierceness and rage, neither does he stand still at the sound of the trumpet.
✧25As often as the trumpet sounds he snorts, ‘Aha!’ He smells the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.
✧26“Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars, and stretches her wings toward the south?
✧27Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up, and makes his nest on high?
✧28On the cliff he dwells and makes his home, on the point of the cliff and the stronghold.
✧29From there he spies out the prey. His eyes see it afar off.
✧30His young ones also suck up blood. Where the slain are, there he is.”