Job 39-42

Job 39

¹Have you knowledge of the rock-goats? or do you see the roes giving birth to their young?

²Is the number of their months fixed by you? or is the time when they give birth ordered by you?

³They are bent down, they give birth to their young, they let loose the fruit of their body.

⁴Their young ones are strong, living in the open country; they go out and do not come back again.

⁵Who has let the ass of the fields go free? or made loose the bands of the loud-voiced beast?

⁶To whom I have given the waste land for a heritage, and the salt land as a living-place.

⁷He makes sport of the noise of the town; the voice of the driver does not come to his ears;

⁸He goes looking for his grass-lands in the mountains, searching out every green thing.

⁹Will the ox of the mountains be your servant? or is his night's resting-place by your food-store?

¹⁰Will he be pulling your plough with cords, turning up the valleys after you?

¹¹Will you put your faith in him, because his strength is great? will you give the fruit of your work into his care?

¹²Will you be looking for him to come back, and get in your seed to the crushing-floor?

¹³Is the wing of the ostrich feeble, or is it because she has no feathers,

¹⁴That she puts her eggs on the earth, warming them in the dust,

¹⁵Without a thought that they may be crushed by the foot, and broken by the beasts of the field?

¹⁶She is cruel to her young ones, as if they were not hers; her work is to no purpose; she has no fear.

¹⁷For God has taken wisdom from her mind, and given her no measure of knowledge.

¹⁸When she is shaking her wings on high, she makes sport of the horse and of him who is seated on him.

¹⁹Do you give strength to the horse? is it by your hand that his neck is clothed with power?

²⁰Is it through you that he is shaking like a locust, in the pride of his loud-sounding breath?

²¹He is stamping with joy in the valley; he makes sport of fear.

²²In his strength he goes out against the arms of war, turning not away from the sword.

²³The bow is sounding against him; he sees the shining point of spear and arrow.

²⁴Shaking with passion, he is biting the earth; he is not able to keep quiet at the sound of the horn;

²⁵When it comes to his ears he says, Aha! He is smelling the fight from far off, and hearing the thunder of the captains, and the war-cries.

²⁶Is it through your knowledge that the hawk takes his flight, stretching out his wings to the south?

²⁷Or is it by your orders that the eagle goes up, and makes his resting-place on high?

²⁸On the rock is his house, and on the mountain-top his strong place.

²⁹From there he is watching for food; his eye sees it far off.

³⁰His young have blood for their drink, and where the dead bodies are, there is he to be seen.

Job 40

¹...

²Will he who is protesting give teaching to the Ruler of all? Let him who has arguments to put forward against God give an answer.

³And Job said in answer to the Lord,

⁴Truly, I am of no value; what answer may I give to you? I will put my hand on my mouth.

⁵I have said once, and even twice, what was in my mind, but I will not do so again.

⁶Then the Lord made answer to Job out of the storm-wind, and said,

⁷Get your strength together like a man of war: I will put questions to you, and you will give me the answers.

⁸Will you even make my right of no value? will you say that I am wrong in order to make clear that you are right?

⁹Have you an arm like God? have you a voice of thunder like his?

¹⁰Put on the ornaments of your pride; be clothed with glory and power:

¹¹Let your wrath be overflowing; let your eyes see all the sons of pride, and make them low.

¹²Send destruction on all who are lifted up, pulling down the sinners from their places.

¹³Let them be covered together in the dust; let their faces be dark in the secret place of the underworld.

¹⁴Then I will give praise to you, saying that your right hand is able to give you salvation.

¹⁵See now the Great Beast, whom I made, even as I made you; he takes grass for food, like the ox.

¹⁶His strength is in his body, and his force in the muscles of his stomach.

¹⁷His tail is curving like a cedar; the muscles of his legs are joined together.

¹⁸His bones are pipes of brass, his legs are like rods of iron.

¹⁹He is the chief of the ways of God, made by him for his pleasure.

²⁰He takes the produce of the mountains, where all the beasts of the field are at play.

²¹He takes his rest under the trees of the river, and in the pool, under the shade of the water-plants.

²²He is covered by the branches of the trees; the grasses of the stream are round him.

²³Truly, if the river is overflowing, it gives him no cause for fear; he has no sense of danger, even if Jordan is rushing against his mouth.

²⁴Will anyone take him when he is on the watch, or put metal teeth through his nose?

Job 41

¹Is it possible for Leviathan to be pulled out with a fish-hook, or for a hook to be put through the bone of his mouth?

²Will you put a cord into his nose, or take him away with a cord round his tongue?

³Will he make prayers to you, or say soft words to you?

⁴Will he make an agreement with you, so that you may take him as a servant for ever?

⁵Will you make sport with him, as with a bird? or put him in chains for your young women?

⁶Will the fishermen make profit out of him? will they have him cut up for the traders?

⁷Will you put sharp-pointed irons into his skin, or fish-spears into his head?

⁸Only put your hand on him, and see what a fight you will have; you will not do it again!

⁹Truly, the hope of his attacker is false; he is overcome even on seeing him!

¹⁰He is so cruel that no one is ready to go against him. Who then is able to keep his place before me?

¹¹Who ever went against me, and got the better of me? There is no one under heaven!

¹²I will not keep quiet about the parts of his body, or about his power, and the strength of his frame.

¹³Who has ever taken off his outer skin? who may come inside his inner coat of iron?

¹⁴Who has made open the doors of his face? Fear is round about his teeth.

¹⁵His back is made of lines of plates, joined tight together, one against the other, like a stamp.

¹⁶One is so near to the other that no air may come between them.

¹⁷They take a grip of one another; they are joined together, so that they may not be parted.

¹⁸His sneezings give out flames, and his eyes are like the eyes of the dawn.

¹⁹Out of his mouth go burning lights, and flames of fire are jumping up.

²⁰Smoke comes out of his nose, like a pot boiling on the fire.

²¹His breath puts fire to coals, and a flame goes out of his mouth.

²²Strength is in his neck, and fear goes dancing before him.

²³The plates of his flesh are joined together, fixed, and not to be moved.

²⁴His heart is as strong as a stone, hard as the lower crushing-stone.

²⁵When he gets ready for the fight, the strong are overcome with fear.

²⁶The sword may come near him but is not able to go through him; the spear, or the arrow, or the sharp-pointed iron.

²⁷Iron is to him as dry grass, and brass as soft wood.

²⁸The arrow is not able to put him to flight: stones are no more to him than dry stems.

²⁹A thick stick is no better than a leaf of grass, and he makes sport of the onrush of the spear.

³⁰Under him are sharp edges of broken pots: as if he was pulling a grain-crushing instrument over the wet earth.

³¹The deep is boiling like a pot of spices, and the sea like a perfume-vessel.

³²After him his way is shining, so that the deep seems white.

³³On earth there is not another like him, who is made without fear.

³⁴Everything which is high goes in fear of him; he is king over all the sons of pride.

Job 42

¹And Job said in answer to the Lord,

²I see that you are able to do every thing, and to give effect to all your designs.

³Who is this who makes dark the purpose of God by words without knowledge? For I have been talking without knowledge about wonders not to be searched out.

⁴Give ear to me, and I will say what is in my mind; I will put questions to you, and you will give me the answers.

⁵Word of you had come to my ears, but now my eye has seen you.

⁶For this cause I give witness that what I said is false, and in sorrow I take my seat in the dust.

⁷And it came about, after he had said these words to Job, that the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, I am very angry with you and your two friends, because you have not said what is right about me, as my servant Job has.

⁸And now, take seven oxen and seven sheep, and go to my servant Job, and give a burned offering for yourselves, and my servant Job will make prayer for you, that I may not send punishment on you; because you have not said what is right about me, as my servant Job has.

⁹And Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite, went and did as the Lord had said. And the Lord gave ear to Job.

¹⁰And the Lord made up to Job for all his losses, after he had made prayer for his friends: and all Job had before was increased by the Lord twice as much.

¹¹And all his brothers and sisters, and his friends of earlier days, came and took food with him in his house; and made clear their grief for him, and gave him comfort for all the evil which the Lord had sent on him; and they all gave him a bit of money and a gold ring.

¹²And the Lord's blessing was greater on the end of Job's life than on its start: and so he came to have fourteen thousand sheep and goats, and six thousand camels, and two thousand oxen, and a thousand she-asses.

¹³And he had seven sons and three daughters.

¹⁴And he gave the first the name of Jemimah, the second Keziah, and the third Keren-happuch;

¹⁵And there were no women so beautiful as the daughters of Job in all the earth: and their father gave them a heritage among their brothers.

¹⁶And after this Job had a hundred and forty years of life, and saw his sons, and his sons' sons, even four generations.

¹⁷And Job came to his end, old and full of days.