New Living Translation | NET Bible |
1 “Can you catch Leviathan with a hook or put a noose around its jaw? | 1"Can you pull in Leviathan with a hook, and tie down its tongue with a rope? |
2Can you tie it with a rope through the nose or pierce its jaw with a spike? | 2Can you put a cord through its nose, or pierce its jaw with a hook? |
3Will it beg you for mercy or implore you for pity? | 3Will it make numerous supplications to you, will it speak to you with tender words? |
4Will it agree to work for you, to be your slave for life? | 4Will it make a pact with you, so you could take it as your slave for life? |
5Can you make it a pet like a bird, or give it to your little girls to play with? | 5Can you play with it, like a bird, or tie it on a leash for your girls? |
6Will merchants try to buy it to sell it in their shops? | 6Will partners bargain for it? Will they divide it up among the merchants? |
7Will its hide be hurt by spears or its head by a harpoon? | 7Can you fill its hide with harpoons or its head with fishing spears? |
8If you lay a hand on it, you will certainly remember the battle that follows. You won’t try that again! | 8If you lay your hand on it, you will remember the fight, and you will never do it again! |
9 No, it is useless to try to capture it. The hunter who attempts it will be knocked down. | 9See, his expectation is wrong, he is laid low even at the sight of it. |
10And since no one dares to disturb it, who then can stand up to me? | 10Is it not fierce when it is awakened? Who is he, then, who can stand before it? |
11Who has given me anything that I need to pay back? Everything under heaven is mine. | 11(Who has confronted me that I should repay? Everything under heaven belongs to me!) |
12“I want to emphasize Leviathan’s limbs and its enormous strength and graceful form. | 12I will not keep silent about its limbs, and the extent of its might, and the grace of its arrangement. |
13Who can strip off its hide, and who can penetrate its double layer of armor? | 13Who can uncover its outer covering? Who can penetrate to the inside of its armor? |
14Who could pry open its jaws? For its teeth are terrible! | 14Who can open the doors of its mouth? Its teeth all around are fearsome. |
15The scales on its back are like rows of shields tightly sealed together. | 15Its back has rows of shields, shut up closely together as with a seal; |
16They are so close together that no air can get between them. | 16each one is so close to the next that no air can come between them. |
17Each scale sticks tight to the next. They interlock and cannot be penetrated. | 17They lock tightly together, one to the next; they cling together and cannot be separated. |
18“When it sneezes, it flashes light! Its eyes are like the red of dawn. | 18Its snorting throws out flashes of light; its eyes are like the red glow of dawn. |
19Lightning leaps from its mouth; flames of fire flash out. | 19Out of its mouth go flames, sparks of fire shoot forth! |
20Smoke streams from its nostrils like steam from a pot heated over burning rushes. | 20Smoke streams from its nostrils as from a boiling pot over burning rushes. |
21Its breath would kindle coals, for flames shoot from its mouth. | 21Its breath sets coals ablaze and a flame shoots from its mouth. |
22“The tremendous strength in Leviathan’s neck strikes terror wherever it goes. | 22Strength lodges in its neck, and despair runs before it. |
23Its flesh is hard and firm and cannot be penetrated. | 23The folds of its flesh are tightly joined; they are firm on it, immovable. |
24Its heart is hard as rock, hard as a millstone. | 24Its heart is hard as rock, hard as a lower millstone. |
25When it rises, the mighty are afraid, gripped by terror. | 25When it rises up, the mighty are terrified, at its thrashing about they withdraw. |
26No sword can stop it, no spear, dart, or javelin. | 26Whoever strikes it with a sword will have no effect, nor with the spear, arrow, or dart. |
27Iron is nothing but straw to that creature, and bronze is like rotten wood. | 27It regards iron as straw and bronze as rotten wood. |
28Arrows cannot make it flee. Stones shot from a sling are like bits of grass. | 28Arrows do not make it flee; slingstones become like chaff to it. |
29Clubs are like a blade of grass, and it laughs at the swish of javelins. | 29A club is counted as a piece of straw; it laughs at the rattling of the lance. |
30Its belly is covered with scales as sharp as glass. It plows up the ground as it drags through the mud. | 30Its underparts are the sharp points of potsherds, it leaves its mark in the mud like a threshing sledge. |
31“Leviathan makes the water boil with its commotion. It stirs the depths like a pot of ointment. | 31It makes the deep boil like a cauldron and stirs up the sea like a pot of ointment, |
32The water glistens in its wake, making the sea look white. | 32It leaves a glistening wake behind it; one would think the deep had a head of white hair. |
33Nothing on earth is its equal, no other creature so fearless. | 33The likes of it is not on earth, a creature without fear. |
34Of all the creatures, it is the proudest. It is the king of beasts.” | 34It looks on every haughty being; it is king over all that are proud." |
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