Job 38

^{Job 38:1} Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:

^{Job 38:2} “Who is this who obscures My counsel by words without knowledge?

^{Job 38:3} Now brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall inform Me.

^{Job 38:4} Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding.

^{Job 38:5} Who fixed its measurements? Surely you know! Or who stretched a measuring line across it?

^{Job 38:6} On what were its foundations set, or who laid its cornerstone,

^{Job 38:7} while the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

^{Job 38:8} Who enclosed the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb,

^{Job 38:9} when I made the clouds its garment and thick darkness its blanket,

^{Job 38:10} when I fixed its boundaries and set in place its bars and doors,

^{Job 38:11} and I declared: ‘You may come this far, but no farther; here your proud waves must stop’?

^{Job 38:12} In your days, have you commanded the morning or assigned the dawn its place,

^{Job 38:13} that it might spread to the ends of the earth and shake the wicked out of it?

^{Job 38:14} The earth takes shape like clay under a seal; its hills stand out like the folds of a garment.

^{Job 38:15} Light is withheld from the wicked, and their upraised arm is broken.

^{Job 38:16} Have you journeyed to the vents of the sea or walked in the trenches of the deep?

^{Job 38:17} Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Have you seen the gates of the shadow of death?

^{Job 38:18} Have you surveyed the extent of the earth? Tell Me, if you know all this.

^{Job 38:19} Where is the way to the home of light? Do you know where darkness resides,

^{Job 38:20} so you can lead it back to its border? Do you know the paths to its home?

^{Job 38:21} Surely you know, for you were already born! And the number of your days is great!

^{Job 38:22} Have you entered the storehouses of snow or observed the storehouses of hail,

^{Job 38:23} which I hold in reserve for times of trouble, for the day of war and battle?

^{Job 38:24} In which direction is the lightning dispersed, or the east wind scattered over the earth?

^{Job 38:25} Who cuts a channel for the flood or clears a path for the thunderbolt,

^{Job 38:26} to bring rain on a barren land, on a desert where no man lives,

^{Job 38:27} to satisfy the parched wasteland and make it sprout with tender grass?

^{Job 38:28} Does the rain have a father? Who has begotten the drops of dew?

^{Job 38:29} From whose womb does the ice emerge? Who gives birth to the frost from heaven,

^{Job 38:30} when the waters become hard as stone and the surface of the deep is frozen?

^{Job 38:31} Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades or loosen the belt of Orion?

^{Job 38:32} Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear and her cubs?

^{Job 38:33} Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set their dominion over the earth?

^{Job 38:34} Can you command the clouds so that a flood of water covers you?

^{Job 38:35} Can you send the lightning bolts on their way? Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?

^{Job 38:36} Who has put wisdom in the heart or given understanding to the mind?

^{Job 38:37} Who has the wisdom to count the clouds? Or who can tilt the water jars of the heavens

^{Job 38:38} when the dust hardens into a mass and the clods of earth stick together?

^{Job 38:39} Can you hunt the prey for a lioness or satisfy the hunger of young lions

^{Job 38:40} when they crouch in their dens and lie in wait in the thicket?

^{Job 38:41} Who provides food for the raven when its young cry out to God as they wander about for lack of food?