38:2 “Who is this, darkening my plans with his ignorant words?
38:3 Stand up like a man, and brace yourself; I will ask questions; and you, give the answers!
38:4 “Where were you when I founded the earth? Tell me, if you know so much.
38:5 Do you know who determined its dimensions or who stretched the measuring line across it?
38:6 On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone,
38:7 when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
38:8 “Who shut up the sea behind closed doors when it gushed forth from the womb,
38:9 when I made the clouds its blanket and dense fog its swaddling cloth,
38:10 when I made the breakers its boundary set its gates and bars,
38:11 and said, ‘You may come this far, but no farther; here your proud waves must stop’?
38:12 “Have you ever in your life called up the dawn and made the morning know its place,
38:13 so that it could take hold of the edges of the earth and shake the wicked out of it?
38:14 Then the earth is changed like clay under a seal, until its colors are fixed like those of a garment.
38:15 But from the wicked the light is withheld, and the arm raised [to strike] is broken.
38:16 “Have you gone down to the springs of the sea or explored the limits of the deep?
38:17 Have the gates of death been revealed to you, the gates of death-like darkness?
38:18 Have you surveyed the full extent of the earth? Say so, if you know it all!
38:19 “Which way leads to where light has its home? and darkness, where does it dwell?
38:20 If you knew, you could take each to its place and set it on its homeward path.
38:21 You know, of course, because you were born then; by now you must be very old!
38:22 “Have you gone into the storehouses for snow or seen the storehouses for hail,
38:23 which I save for times of trouble, for days of battle and war?
38:24 “By what path is light dispersed, or the east wind poured out on the land?
38:25 Who cut a channel for the downpours, or a way for the lightning and thunder,
38:26 causing it to rain where no one is, in a desert without anyone there,
38:27 drenching the waste and desolate [ground], till the tender grass sprouts?
38:28 Does the rain have a father? Who is the father of dewdrops?
38:29 From whose womb does ice come? Who gives birth to the frost of heaven,
38:30 when water becomes as hard as stone, and the surface of the deep freezes solid?
38:31 “Can you tie up the cords of the Pleiades or loosen the belt of Orion?
38:32 Can you lead out the constellations of the zodiac in their season or guide the Great Bear and its cubs?
38:33 Do you know the laws of the sky? Can you determine how they affect the earth?
38:34 “Can you raise your voice to the clouds and make them cover you with a flood of rain?
38:35 Can you send lightning bolts on their way? Will they say to you, ‘Here we are’?
38:36 “Who put wisdom in people’s inner parts? Who gave understanding to the mind?
38:37 Who, by wisdom, can number the clouds? Who can tilt the water-skins of heaven,
38:38 so that the dust becomes a mass [of mud], and its clods stick together?
38:39 “Can you hunt prey for a lioness or satisfy the appetite of the young lions,
38:40 when they crouch in their dens or lie in ambush in their lairs?
38:41 Who provides food for the raven when his young cry out to God and wander about for lack of food?
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