3.3 KiB
The Lord Speaks
Chapter 38
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Then the Lord answered Job from the whirlwind. He said:
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Who is this who obscures my counsel with ignorant words?
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Get ready to answer me like a man; when I question you, you will inform me.
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Where were you when I established the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.
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Who fixed its dimensions? Certainly you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it?
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What supports its foundations? Or who laid its cornerstone
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while the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
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Who enclosed the sea behind doors when it burst from the womb,
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when I made the clouds its garment and total darkness its blanket,
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when I determined its boundaries and put its bars and doors in place,
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when I declared, "You may come this far, but no farther; your proud waves stop here"?
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Have you ever in your life commanded the morning or assigned the dawn its place,
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so it may seize the edges of the earth and shake the wicked out of it?
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The earth is changed as clay is by a seal; its hills stand out like the folds of a garment.
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Light is withheld from the wicked, and the arm raised in violence is broken.
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Have you traveled to the sources of the sea or walked in the depths of the oceans?
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Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Have you seen the gates of deep darkness?
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Have you comprehended the extent of the earth? Tell me, if you know all this.
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Where is the road to the home of light? Do you know where darkness lives,
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so you can lead it back to its border? Are you familiar with the paths to its home?
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Don't you know? You were already born; you have lived so long!
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Have you entered the place where the snow is stored? Or have you seen the storehouses of hail,
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which I hold in reserve for times of trouble, for the day of warfare and battle?
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What road leads to the place where light is dispersed? Where is the source of the east wind that spreads across the earth?
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Who cuts a channel for the flooding rain or clears the way for lightning,
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to bring rain on an uninhabited land, on a desert with no human life,
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to satisfy the parched wasteland and cause the grass to sprout?
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Does the rain have a father? Who fathered the drops of dew?
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Whose womb did the ice come from? Who gave birth to the frost of heaven
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when water becomes as hard as stone, and the surface of the watery depths is frozen?
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Can you fasten the chains of the Pleiades or loosen the belt of Orion?
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Can you bring out the constellations in their season and lead the Bear and her cubs?
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Do you know the laws of heaven? Can you impose its authority on earth?
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Can you command the clouds so that a flood of water covers you?
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Can you send out lightning bolts, and they go? Do they report to you, "Here we are"?
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Who put wisdom in the heart or gave the mind understanding?
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Who has the wisdom to number the clouds? Or who can tilt the water jars of heaven
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when the dust hardens like cast metal and the clods of dirt stick together?
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Can you hunt prey for a lioness or satisfy the appetite of young lions
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when they crouch in their dens and lie in wait within their lairs?
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Who provides the raven's food when its young cry out to God and wander about for lack of food?