2.7 KiB
The LORD's Challenge Continues
Chapter 39
- "Do you know when the wild goats give birth?
Have you watched as deer are born in the wild?
- Do you know how many months they carry their young?
Are you aware of the time of their delivery?
- They crouch down to give birth to their young
and deliver their offspring.
- Their young grow up in the open fields,
then leave home and never return.
- "Who gives the wild donkey its freedom?
Who untied its ropes?
- I have placed it in the wilderness;
its home is the wasteland.
- It hates the noise of the city
and has no driver to shout at it.
- The mountains are its pastureland,
where it searches for every blade of grass.
- "Will the wild ox consent to being tamed?
Will it spend the night in your stall?
- Can you hitch a wild ox to a plow?
Will it plow a field for you?
- Given its strength, can you trust it?
Can you leave and trust the ox to do your work?
- Can you rely on it to bring home your grain
and deliver it to your threshing floor?
- "The ostrich flaps her wings grandly,
but they are no match for the feathers of the stork.
- She lays her eggs on top of the earth,
letting them be warmed in the dust.
- She doesn't worry that a foot might crush them
or a wild animal might destroy them.
- She is harsh toward her young,
as if they were not her own.
She doesn't care if they die.
- For God has deprived her of wisdom.
He has given her no understanding.
- But whenever she jumps up to run,
she passes the swiftest horse with its rider.
- "Have you given the horse its strength
or clothed its neck with a flowing mane?
- Did you give it the ability to leap like a locust?
Its majestic snorting is terrifying!
- It paws the earth and rejoices in its strength
when it charges out to battle.
- It laughs at fear and is unafraid.
It does not run from the sword.
- The arrows rattle against it,
and the spear and javelin flash.
- It paws the ground fiercely
and rushes forward into battle when the ram's horn blows.
- It snorts at the sound of the horn.
It senses the battle in the distance.
It quivers at the captain's commands and the noise of battle.
- "Is it your wisdom that makes the hawk soar
and spread its wings toward the south?
- Is it at your command that the eagle rises
to the heights to make its nest?
- It lives on the cliffs,
making its home on a distant, rocky crag.
- From there it hunts its prey,
keeping watch with piercing eyes.
- Its young gulp down blood.
Where there's a carcass, there you'll find it."