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