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The LORD Challenges Job

Verse1Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:

Verse2“Who is this who obscures My counsel by words without knowledge?

Verse3Now brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall inform Me.

Verse4Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding.

Verse5Who fixed its measurements? Surely you know! Or who stretched a measuring line across it?

Verse6On what were its foundations set, or who laid its cornerstone,

Verse7while the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

Verse8Who enclosed the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb,

Verse9when I made the clouds its garment and thick darkness its blanket,

Verse10when I fixed its boundaries and set in place its bars and doors,

Verse11and I declared: ‘You may come this far, but no farther; here your proud waves must stop’?

Verse12In your days, have you commanded the morning or assigned the dawn its place,

Verse13that it might spread to the ends of the earth and shake the wicked out of it?

Verse14The earth takes shape like clay under a seal; its hills stand out like the folds of a garment.

Verse15Light is withheld from the wicked, and their upraised arm is broken.

Verse16Have you journeyed to the vents of the sea or walked in the trenches of the deep?

Verse17Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Have you seen the gates of the shadow of death?

Verse18Have you surveyed the extent of the earth? Tell Me, if you know all this.

Verse19Where is the way to the home of light? Do you know where darkness resides,

Verse20so you can lead it back to its border? Do you know the paths to its home?

Verse21Surely you know, for you were already born! And the number of your days is great!

Verse22Have you entered the storehouses of snow or observed the storehouses of hail,

Verse23which I hold in reserve for times of trouble, for the day of war and battle?

Verse24In which direction is the lightning dispersed, or the east wind scattered over the earth?

Verse25Who cuts a channel for the flood or clears a path for the thunderbolt,

Verse26to bring rain on a barren land, on a desert where no man lives,

Verse27to satisfy the parched wasteland and make it sprout with tender grass?

Verse28Does the rain have a father? Who has begotten the drops of dew?

Verse29From whose womb does the ice emerge? Who gives birth to the frost from heaven,

Verse30when the waters become hard as stone and the surface of the deep is frozen?

Verse31Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades or loosen the belt of Orion?

Verse32Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear and her cubs?

Verse33Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set their dominion over the earth?

Verse34Can you command the clouds so that a flood of water covers you?

Verse35Can you send the lightning bolts on their way? Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?

Verse36Who has put wisdom in the heart or given understanding to the mind?

Verse37Who has the wisdom to count the clouds? Or who can tilt the water jars of the heavens

Verse38when the dust hardens into a mass and the clods of earth stick together?

Verse39Can you hunt the prey for a lioness or satisfy the hunger of young lions

Verse40when they crouch in their dens and lie in wait in the thicket?

Verse41Who provides food for the raven when its young cry out to God as they wander about for lack of food?