Hiob 38

1. ¹And the Lord made answer to Job out of the storm-wind, and said,
2. ²Who is this who makes the purpose of God dark by words without knowledge?
3. ³Get your strength together like a man of war; I will put questions to you, and you will give me the answers.
4. ⁴Where were you when I put the earth on its base? Say, if you have knowledge.
5. ⁵By whom were its measures fixed? Say, if you have wisdom; or by whom was the line stretched out over it?
6. ⁶On what were its pillars based, or who put down its angle-stone,
7. ⁷When the morning stars made songs together, and all the sons of the gods gave cries of joy?
8. ⁸Or where were you when the sea came to birth, pushing out from its secret place;
9. ⁹When I made the cloud its robe, and put thick clouds as bands round it,
10. ¹⁰Ordering a fixed limit for it, with locks and doors;
11. ¹¹And said, So far you may come, and no farther; and here the pride of your waves will be stopped?
12. ¹²Have you, from your earliest days, given orders to the morning, or made the dawn conscious of its place;
13. ¹³So that it might take a grip of the skirts of the earth, shaking all the evil-doers out of it?
14. ¹⁴It is changed like wet earth under a stamp, and is coloured like a robe;
15. ¹⁵And from the evil-doers their light is kept back, and the arm of pride is broken.
16. ¹⁶Have you come into the springs of the sea, walking in the secret places of the deep?
17. ¹⁷Have the doors of death been open to you, or have the door-keepers of the dark ever seen you?
18. ¹⁸Have you taken note of the wide limits of the earth? Say, if you have knowledge of it all.
19. ¹⁹Which is the way to the resting-place of the light, and where is the store-house of the dark;
20. ²⁰So that you might take it to its limit, guiding it to its house?
21. ²¹No doubt you have knowledge of it, for then you had come to birth, and the number of your days is great.
22. ²²Have you come into the secret place of snow, or have you seen the store-houses of the ice-drops,
23. ²³Which I have kept for the time of trouble, for the day of war and fighting?
24. ²⁴Which is the way to the place where the wind is measured out, and the east wind sent out over the earth?
25. ²⁵By whom has the way been cut for the flowing of the rain, and the flaming of the thunder;
26. ²⁶Causing rain to come on a land where no man is living, on the waste land which has no people;
27. ²⁷To give water to the land where there is waste and destruction, and to make the dry land green with young grass?
28. ²⁸Has the rain a father? or who gave birth to the drops of night mist?
29. ²⁹Out of whose body came the ice? and who gave birth to the cold mist of heaven?
30. ³⁰The waters are joined together, hard as a stone, and the face of the deep is covered.
31. ³¹Are the bands of the Pleiades fixed by you, or are the cords of Orion made loose?
32. ³²Do you make Mazzaroth come out in its right time, or are the Bear and its children guided by you?
33. ³³Have you knowledge of the laws of the heavens? did you give them rule over the earth?
34. ³⁴Is your voice sent up to the cloud, so that you may be covered by the weight of waters?
35. ³⁵Do you send out the thunder-flames, so that they may go, and say to you, Here we are?
36. ³⁶Who has put wisdom in the high clouds, or given knowledge to the lights of the north?
37. ³⁷By whose wisdom are the clouds numbered, or the water-skins of the heavens turned to the earth,
38. ³⁸When the earth becomes hard as metal, and is joined together in masses?

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