The LORD Challenges Job

1Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:

2“Who is this who obscures My counsel

by words without knowledge?a

3Now brace yourselfb like a man;

I will question you, and you shall inform Me.c

4Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?

Tell Me, if you have understanding.

5Who fixed its measurements? Surely you know!

Or who stretched a measuring line across it?

6On what were its foundations set,

or who laid its cornerstone,d

7while the morning stars sang together

and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

8Who enclosed the sea behind doors

when it burst forth from the womb,

9when I made the clouds its garment

and thick darkness its blanket,

10when I fixed its boundaries

and set in place its bars and doors,

11and I declared: ‘You may come this far, but no farther;

here your proud waves must stop’?

12In your days, have you commanded the morning

or assigned the dawn its place,

13that it might spread to the ends of the earth

and shake the wicked out of it?

14The earth takes shape like clay under a seal;

its hills stand out like the folds of a garment.

15Light is withheld from the wicked,

and their upraised arm is broken.

16Have you journeyed to the vents of the sea

or walked in the trenches of the deep?

17Have the gates of death been revealed to you?

Have you seen the gates of the shadow of death?

18Have you surveyed the extent of the earth?

Tell Me, if you know all this.

19Where is the way to the home of light?

Do you know where darkness resides,

20so you can lead it back to its border?

Do you know the paths to its home?

21Surely you know, for you were already born!

And the number of your days is great!

22Have you entered the storehouses of snow

or observed the storehouses of hail,

23which I hold in reserve for times of trouble,

for the day of war and battle?

24In which direction is the lightning dispersed,

or the east wind scattered over the earth?

25Who cuts a channel for the flood

or clears a path for the thunderbolt,

26to bring rain on a barren land,

on a desert where no man lives,

27to satisfy the parched wasteland

and make it sprout with tender grass?

28Does the rain have a father?

Who has begotten the drops of dew?

29From whose womb does the ice emerge?

Who gives birth to the frost from heaven,

30when the waters become hard as stone

and the surface of the deep is frozen?

31Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades

or loosen the belt of Orion?

32Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasonse

or lead out the Bearf and her cubs?

33Do you know the laws of the heavens?

Can you set their dominion over the earth?

34Can you command the clouds

so that a flood of water covers you?

35Can you send the lightning bolts on their way?

Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?

36Who has put wisdom in the heartg

or given understanding to the mind?

37Who has the wisdom to count the clouds?

Or who can tilt the water jars of the heavens

38when the dust hardens into a mass

and the clods of earth stick together?

39Can you hunt the prey for a lioness

or satisfy the hunger of young lions

40when they crouch in their dens

and lie in wait in the thicket?

41Who provides food for the raven

when its young cry out to God

as they wander about for lack of food?