2.7 KiB
The LORD's Challenge Continues
Chapter 41
- "Can you catch Leviathan with a hook
or put a noose around its jaw?
- Can you tie it with a rope through the nose
or pierce its jaw with a spike?
- Will it beg you for mercy
or implore you for pity?
- Will it agree to work for you,
to be your slave for life?
- Can you make it a pet like a bird,
or give it to your little girls to play with?
- Will merchants try to buy it
to sell it in their shops?
- Will its hide be hurt by spears
or its head by a harpoon?
- If you lay a hand on it,
you will certainly remember the battle that follows.
You won't try that again!
- No, it is useless to try to capture it.
The hunter who attempts it will be knocked down.
- And since no one dares to disturb it,
who then can stand up to me?
- Who has given me anything that I need to pay back?
Everything under heaven is mine.
- "I want to emphasize Leviathan's limbs
and its enormous strength and graceful form.
-
Who can strip off its hide, and who can penetrate its double layer of armor?
-
Who could pry open its jaws?
For its teeth are terrible!
- The scales on its back are like rows of shields
tightly sealed together.
- They are so close together
that no air can get between them.
- Each scale sticks tight to the next.
They interlock and cannot be penetrated.
- "When it sneezes, it flashes light!
Its eyes are like the red of dawn.
- Lightning leaps from its mouth;
flames of fire flash out.
- Smoke streams from its nostrils
like steam from a pot heated over burning rushes.
- Its breath would kindle coals,
for flames shoot from its mouth.
- "The tremendous strength in Leviathan's neck
strikes terror wherever it goes.
- Its flesh is hard and firm
and cannot be penetrated.
- Its heart is hard as rock,
hard as a millstone.
- When it rises, the mighty are afraid,
gripped by terror.
- No sword can stop it,
no spear, dart, or javelin.
- Iron is nothing but straw to that creature,
and bronze is like rotten wood.
- Arrows cannot make it flee.
Stones shot from a sling are like bits of grass.
- Clubs are like a blade of grass,
and it laughs at the swish of javelins.
- Its belly is covered with scales as sharp as glass.
It plows up the ground as it drags through the mud.
- "Leviathan makes the water boil with its commotion.
It stirs the depths like a pot of ointment.
- The water glistens in its wake,
making the sea look white.
- Nothing on earth is its equal,
no other creature so fearless.
- Of all the creatures, it is the proudest.
It is the king of beasts."