Job 38

1Then the LORD answered Job from the storm: 2Who is this who makes my plan obscure with words that lack knowledge? 3Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you will tell me the answers. 4Where were you when I founded the earth? Tell me, if you have such understanding. 5Who decided how large it would be? You must know! Or who ran a measuring line across it? 6On what were its footings set down, or who laid its cornerstone, 7while the morning stars were singing together and all the sons of God raised a shout of joy? 8Who closed the sea in behind doors when it burst out and came forth from the womb, 9when I made the clouds its clothing and dense darkness the cloth that wrapped it, 10when I marked out my boundary for it and set in place its bar and doors, 11and said, ‘You may come as far as this and go no further; here your proud waves will halt’? 12Have you ever in your life given orders to the morning or shown the dawn its place, 13so that it seizes the earth by its edges and shakes the wicked out of it? 14The earth takes shape like clay under a seal; its features stand out like the folds of a garment. 15The wicked are denied their light, and the arm they raise is broken. 16Have you gone down to the sources of the sea or walked through the hidden depths of the ocean? 17Have the gates of death been opened to you? Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness? 18Have you grasped how wide the earth is? Tell me, if you know all this. 19Where is the road to the place where light lives? And darkness, where is its home, 20so that you could lead it to its territory and know the paths to its home? 21Surely you know, since you were already born then, and you have lived so many days! 22Have you gone into the storerooms of the snow or seen the storerooms of the hail, 23which I keep in reserve for times of trouble, for days of battle and war? 24By what way is the light parceled out, or the east wind spread across the earth? 25Who carves out a channel for the torrents of rain and a path for the thunderstorm, 26to bring rain on land where no one lives, on a wilderness without a human in it, 27to soak the barren, desolate ground and make the tender grass spring up? 28Does the rain have a father? Who has fathered the drops of dew? 29From whose womb does the ice come? And who gives birth to the frost of the sky? 30The waters harden like stone, and the surface of the deep freezes solid. 31Can you tie together the cluster of the Pleiades or untie the belt of Orion? 32Can you bring out the constellations at their proper times or guide the Bear with its cubs? 33Do you know the laws that govern the heavens? Can you establish their rule over the earth? 34Can you shout an order to the clouds and have a flood of water cover you? 35Can you send the lightning bolts on their way, and will they say to you, ‘Here we are’? 36Who has put wisdom in the inner self or given understanding to the mind? 37Who has the wisdom to count the clouds? Who can tip over the water jars of the sky 38when the dust has hardened into a solid mass and the clods cling together? 39Do you hunt down prey for the lioness or satisfy the hunger of her young lions 40when they crouch in their dens or lie in wait in the thicket? 41Who supplies the raven with its food when its young ones cry out to God and wander about with nothing to eat?