The Lord Speaks

1Then the Lord answered Job from the whirlwind.a He said:

2Who is this who obscures my counsel

with ignorant words?a

3Get ready to answer me like a man;

when I questiona you, you will inform me.

4Where were you when I establisheda the earth?

Tell me, if you haveA 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 Goda 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,a a

10when I determined its boundariesA

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.

15LightA 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 gatesa 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;a

you have lived so long!A

22Have you entered the place where the snow is stored?

Or have you seen the storehouses of hail,a

23which I hold in reserve for times of trouble,

for the day of warfare and battle?a

24What road leads to the place where light is dispersed?A

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,A

27to satisfy the parched wasteland

and cause the grass to sprout?a

28Does the rain have a father?

Who fathered the drops of dew?a

29Whose womb did the ice come from?

Who gave birth to the frost of heaven

30when water becomes as hard as stone,A

and the surface of the watery depths is frozen?a

31Can you fasten the chains of the Pleiades

or loosen the belt of Orion?

32Can you bring out the constellationsA in their season

and lead the BearB and her cubs?a

33Do you know the lawsa of heaven?

Can you impose itsA authority on earth?

34Can you commandA the clouds

so that a flood of water covers you?a

35Can you send out lightninga bolts, and they go?

Do they report to you, “Here we are”?

36Who put wisdoma in the heartA

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 lionsa

40when they crouch in their dens

and lie in wait within their lairs?

41Who provides the raven’s fooda

when its young cry out to God

and wander about for lack of food?