Job Chapter 39
1 “Do you know when mountain goats give birth?
Do you ever see a deer calving?
2 Can you count the months of their gestation
or learn when they have their fawns?
3 They crouch down to deliver their young.
4 Their offspring grow strong out in the open;
they leave home and never return.
Job 39:1-4
5 “Who turned the wild donkey loose?
Who untied its ropes?
6 I gave it the open country for a home,
desert land to live in?
7 It scorns city turmoil
and doesn’t have to listen to a driver shout at it.
8 It roams the mountains for pasture,
looking for anything green.
Job 39:5-8
9 “Will a wild ox consent to serve you
and spend the night at your manger?
10 Can you harness it to plow in a furrow?
Will it harrow your fields?
11 Will you depend on it because it’s strong
and leave your work for it to do?
12 Will you trust it to bring your grain home
and deliver it to your threshing floor?
Job 39:9-12
13 “The ostrich’s wings flap happily,
but they don’t compare
with the wings and feathers of a stork.
14 She abandons her eggs in the ground
to stay warm in the sand.
15 She forgets that a foot may crush them
or a wild ox may tramp on them.
16 She’s harsh toward her young as if they weren’t hers;
though her work may be pointless, she doesn’t care,
17 because God hasn’t made her wise
or given her intelligence.
18 When she jumps up to run,
she laughs at a horse and its rider.
Job 39:13-18
19 “Do you give a horse its strength
or cover its neck with a mane?
20 Can you make it leap like a locust?
Its majestic snorting is terrifying!
21 It paws in the valley and frolics in its strength
and charges out to battle.
22 It mocks fear and
doesn’t shy away from the sword.
23 The quiver rattles against it,
the flashing spear and javelin too.
24 It doesn’t stand still when the bugle signals;
with trembling rage, it races over the ground.
25 As often as the bugle blows, it says, ‘Aha!’
It smells a battle a long way off,
the captain’s thundering, and the battle cry.
Job 39:19-25
26 “Does a hawk soar because you’re so smart
as it stretches its wings toward the south?
27 Does an eagle mount up at your command
and build its nest up high?
28 It lives and lodges on the cliffs,
in inaccessible places on the rocky crag.
29 From there it spies out prey
that it can see from far away.
30 Even its young gulp down blood;
they’re right there when the kill goes down.
Job 39:26-30