Job Chapter 38

Job 37:14-24

¹ God answered Job out of the whirlwind:

            ² “Who is this that confuses my counsel

                  with ignorant words?

            ³ Gird up* like a man;

                  I’ll ask you some questions, and you answer me.

            ⁴ Where were you when I laid the foundation for the earth?

                  Tell me if you have any idea.

            ⁵ Who specified its measurements

                  or stretched out a line on it?

                  Surely you know!

            ⁶ What did its pylons rest on?

                        Who laid its cornerstone

                  ⁷ when the morning stars sang together

                        and all God’s angels shouted for joy?           

Job 38:1-7

            ⁸ “Who shut the ocean in boundaries,

                        when it came bursting out of the womb,

                        ⁹ when I clothed it with clouds

                              and swaddled it with deep darkness,

                        ¹⁰ when I set its boundaries,

                              bolted its doors,

                              ¹¹ and said, ‘You can’t go beyond this point;

                              here’s where your proud waves stop’?     

Job 38:8-11

            ¹² “Have you ever commanded the morning

                        and made dawn happen

                        ¹³ so it can spread to the ends of the earth

                        and bring to an end night’s evil?

                  ¹⁴ The earth is stamped like clay under a seal;

                        its features stand out like folds in a robe.

            ¹⁵ Light is withheld from sinners,

                  and their uplifted arm is broken.                         

Job 38:12-15

            ¹⁶ “Have you traveled to the springs of the ocean

                  or walked in the recesses of the deep?

            ¹⁷ Have the gates of death been revealed to you;

                  have you seen the doors into deep darkness?

            ¹⁸ Do you have any idea how big the earth is?

Tell me if you know that.                                       Job 38:16-18

            ¹⁹ “Where’s the road to where light lives?

                        Where’s the place for darkness,

                  ²⁰ so you can take it to its territory

                        and make out the paths to its home?

                  ²¹ You know because you were born there, right!

                        and you’ve lived so long!

            ²² Have you entered the storehouses for snow

                  or seen where I keep the hail

                        ²³ I reserve for troubled times,

                              for the time of war and battle?

            ²⁴ Where’s the road to the source of light

                  or where the east wind scatters over the earth?  

Job 38:19-24

            ²⁵ “Who carved a channel for the flood

                        or laid out the course of a thunderbolt

                  ²⁶ to bring rain on land with no people—

                        on a vacant desert—

                  ²⁷ to satisfy desolate land

                        and make grass sprout?

            ²⁸ Does rain have a father?

                  Who has begotten the drops of dew?

            ²⁹ Whose womb did ice come out of?

                  Who gave birth to frost from the sky?

            ³⁰ Water gets as hard as rock;

                  its surface freezes over and imprisons the deep.

Job 38:25-30

            ³¹ “Can you tie up the chains of the Pleiades

                  or untie the cords of Orion?

            ³² Can you lead out the signs of the Zodiac in their seasons

                  and guide the Bear with her cubs?

            ³³ Do you know the laws of the sky

                  or manage the earth with them?

            ³⁴ “Can you shout to the clouds

                  to get enough water to cover you?

            ³⁵ Do you send out lightning bolts on their way?

Do they report to you, ‘We’re here’?                    Job 38:31-35

            ³⁶ “Who endowed the heart with wisdom

                  or gave intelligence to the mind?

            ³⁷ Who can count the clouds

                  or tip over the water jars in the sky

                        ³⁸ when dust hardens into clumps

                        and forms clods?                                           

Job 38:36-38

            ³⁹ “Can you stalk prey for a lion

                        or satisfy the appetite of young lions

                  ⁴⁰ when they crouch in their dens

                        and lie in wait in their lairs?

            ⁴¹ Who fixes feed for the ravens

                  when their young call out to God

                  and wander around with nothing to eat?            

Job 38:39-41