38:1 | | And the Lord made answer to Job out of the storm-wind, and said, |
38:2 | | Who is this who makes the purpose of God dark by words without knowledge? |
38:3 | | Get your strength together like a man of war; I will put questions to you, and you will give me the answers. |
38:4 | | Where were you when I put the earth on its base? Say, if you have knowledge. |
38:5 | | By whom were its measures fixed? Say, if you have wisdom; or by whom was the line stretched out over it? |
38:6 | | On what were its pillars based, or who put down its angle-stone, |
38:7 | | When the morning stars made songs together, and all the sons of the gods gave cries of joy? |
38:8 | | Or where were you when the sea came to birth, pushing out from its secret place; |
38:9 | | When I made the cloud its robe, and put thick clouds as bands round it, |
38:10 | | Ordering a fixed limit for it, with locks and doors; |
38:11 | | And said, So far you may come, and no farther; and here the pride of your waves will be stopped? |
38:12 | | Have you, from your earliest days, given orders to the morning, or made the dawn conscious of its place; |
38:13 | | So that it might take a grip of the skirts of the earth, shaking all the evil-doers out of it? |
38:14 | | It is changed like wet earth under a stamp, and is coloured like a robe; |
38:15 | | And from the evil-doers their light is kept back, and the arm of pride is broken. |
38:16 | | Have you come into the springs of the sea, walking in the secret places of the deep? |
38:17 | | Have the doors of death been open to you, or have the door-keepers of the dark ever seen you? |
38:18 | | Have you taken note of the wide limits of the earth? Say, if you have knowledge of it all. |
38:19 | | Which is the way to the resting-place of the light, and where is the store-house of the dark; |
38:20 | | So that you might take it to its limit, guiding it to its house? |
38:21 | | No doubt you have knowledge of it, for then you had come to birth, and the number of your days is great. |
38:22 | | Have you come into the secret place of snow, or have you seen the store-houses of the ice-drops, |
38:23 | | Which I have kept for the time of trouble, for the day of war and fighting? |
38:24 | | Which is the way to the place where the wind is measured out, and the east wind sent out over the earth? |
38:25 | | By whom has the way been cut for the flowing of the rain, and the flaming of the thunder; |
38:26 | | Causing rain to come on a land where no man is living, on the waste land which has no people; |
38:27 | | To give water to the land where there is waste and destruction, and to make the dry land green with young grass? |
38:28 | | Has the rain a father? or who gave birth to the drops of night mist? |
38:29 | | Out of whose body came the ice? and who gave birth to the cold mist of heaven? |
38:30 | | The waters are joined together, hard as a stone, and the face of the deep is covered. |
38:31 | | Are the bands of the Pleiades fixed by you, or are the cords of Orion made loose? |
38:32 | | Do you make Mazzaroth come out in its right time, or are the Bear and its children guided by you? |
38:33 | | Have you knowledge of the laws of the heavens? did you give them rule over the earth? |
38:34 | | Is your voice sent up to the cloud, so that you may be covered by the weight of waters? |
38:35 | | Do you send out the thunder-flames, so that they may go, and say to you, Here we are? |
38:36 | | Who has put wisdom in the high clouds, or given knowledge to the lights of the north? |
38:37 | | By whose wisdom are the clouds numbered, or the water-skins of the heavens turned to the earth, |
38:38 | | When the earth becomes hard as metal, and is joined together in masses? |
38:39 | | Do you go after food for the she-lion, or get meat so that the young lions may have enough, |
38:40 | | When they are stretched out in their holes, and are waiting in the brushwood? |
38:41 | | Who gives in the evening the meat he is searching for, when his young ones are crying to God; when the young lions with loud noise go wandering after their food? |