Chronological Plan

¹Then the LORD answered Job from the whirlwind. He said:

²Who is this who obscures my counsel with ignorant words?

³Get ready to answer me like a man; when I question you, you will inform me.

⁴Where were you when I established the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.

⁵Who fixed its dimensions? Certainly you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it?

⁶What supports its foundations? Or who laid its cornerstone

⁷while the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

⁸Who enclosed the sea behind doors when it burst from the womb,

⁹when I made the clouds its garment and total darkness its blanket,

¹⁰when I determined its boundaries and put its bars and doors in place,

¹¹when I declared: “You may come this far, but no farther; your proud waves stop here”?

¹²Have you ever in your life commanded the morning or assigned the dawn its place,

¹³so it may seize the edges of the earth and shake the wicked out of it?

¹⁴The earth is changed as clay is by a seal; its hills stand out like the folds of a garment.

¹⁵Light is withheld from the wicked, and the arm raised in violence is broken.

¹⁶Have you traveled to the sources of the sea or walked in the depths of the oceans?

¹⁷Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Have you seen the gates of deep darkness?

¹⁸Have you comprehended the extent of the earth? Tell me, if you know all this.

¹⁹Where is the road to the home of light? Do you know where darkness lives,

²⁰so you can lead it back to its border? Are you familiar with the paths to its home?

²¹Don’t you know? You were already born; you have lived so long!

²²Have you entered the place where the snow is stored? Or have you seen the storehouses of hail,

²³which I hold in reserve for times of trouble, for the day of warfare and battle?

²⁴What road leads to the place where light is dispersed? Where is the source of the east wind that spreads across the earth?

²⁵Who cuts a channel for the flooding rain or clears the way for lightning,

²⁶to bring rain on an uninhabited land, on a desert with no human life,

²⁷to satisfy the parched wasteland and cause the grass to sprout?

²⁸Does the rain have a father? Who fathered the drops of dew?

²⁹Whose womb did the ice come from? Who gave birth to the frost of heaven

³⁰when water becomes as hard as stone, and the surface of the watery depths is frozen?

³¹Can you fasten the chains of the Pleiades or loosen the belt of Orion?

³²Can you bring out the constellations in their season and lead the Bear and her cubs?

³³Do you know the laws of heaven? Can you impose its authority on earth?

³⁴Can you command the clouds so that a flood of water covers you?

³⁵Can you send out lightning bolts, and they go? Do they report to you: “Here we are”?

³⁶Who put wisdom in the heart or gave the mind understanding?

³⁷Who has the wisdom to number the clouds? Or who can tilt the water jars of heaven

³⁸when the dust hardens like cast metal and the clods of dirt stick together?

³⁹Can you hunt prey for a lioness or satisfy the appetite of young lions

⁴⁰when they crouch in their dens and lie in wait within their lairs?

⁴¹Who provides the raven’s food when its young cry out to God and wander about for lack of food?

¹Do you know when mountain goats give birth? Have you watched the deer in labor?

²Can you count the months they are pregnant so you can know the time they give birth?

³They crouch down to give birth to their young; they deliver their newborn.

⁴Their offspring are healthy and grow up in the open field. They leave and do not return.

⁵Who set the wild donkey free? Who released the swift donkey from its harness?

⁶I made the desert its home, and the salty wasteland its dwelling.

⁷It scoffs at the noise of the village and never hears the shouts of a driver.

⁸It roams the mountains for its pastureland, searching for anything green.

⁹Would the wild ox be willing to serve you? Would it spend the night by your feeding trough?

¹⁰Can you hold the wild ox to a furrow by its harness? Will it plow the valleys behind you?

¹¹Can you depend on it because its strength is great? Would you leave it to do your hard work?

¹²Can you trust the wild ox to harvest your grain and bring it to your threshing floor?

¹³The wings of the ostrich flap joyfully, but are her feathers and plumage like the stork’s?

¹⁴She abandons her eggs on the ground and lets them be warmed in the sand.

¹⁵She forgets that a foot may crush them or that some wild animal may trample them.

¹⁶She treats her young harshly, as if they were not her own, with no fear that her labor may have been in vain.

¹⁷For God has deprived her of wisdom; he has not endowed her with understanding.

¹⁸When she proudly spreads her wings, she laughs at the horse and its rider.

¹⁹Do you give strength to the horse? Do you adorn his neck with a mane?

²⁰Do you make him leap like a locust? His proud snorting fills one with terror.

²¹He paws in the valley and rejoices in his strength; he charges into battle.

²²He laughs at fear, since he is afraid of nothing; he does not run from the sword.

²³A quiver rattles at his side, along with a flashing spear and a javelin.

²⁴He charges ahead with trembling rage; he cannot stand still at the trumpet’s sound.

²⁵When the trumpet blasts, he snorts defiantly. He smells the battle from a distance; he hears the officers’ shouts and the battle cry.

²⁶Does the hawk take flight by your understanding and spread its wings to the south?

²⁷Does the eagle soar at your command and make its nest on high?

²⁸It lives on a cliff where it spends the night; its stronghold is on a rocky crag.

²⁹From there it searches for prey; its eyes penetrate the distance.

³⁰Its brood gulps down blood, and where the slain are, it is there.