욥기 38

The LORD answers Job from the storm

¹Then the LORD answered Job from the storm:^{a 2}Who is this who makes my plan obscure \q with words that lack knowledge? ³Brace yourself like a man; \q I will question you, \q and you will tell me the answers. ⁴Where were you when I founded the earth? \q Tell me, if you have such understanding. ⁵Who decided how large it would be? You must know! \q Or who ran a measuring line across it? ⁶On what were its footings set down, \q or who laid its cornerstone, ⁷while the morning stars were singing together \q and all the sons of God raised a shout of joy? ⁸Who closed the sea in behind doors \q when it burst out \q and came forth from the womb, ⁹when I made the clouds its clothing \q and dense darkness the cloth that wrapped it, ¹⁰when I marked out my boundary for it \q and set in place its bar and doors,^{b 11}and said, ‘You may come as far as this and go no further; \q here your proud waves will halt’? ¹²Have you ever in your life given orders to the morning \q or shown the dawn its place, ¹³so that it seizes the earth by its edges \q and shakes the wicked out of it? ¹⁴The earth takes shape like clay under a seal; \q its features stand out like the folds of a garment.^{c 15}The wicked are denied their light, \q and the arm they raise is broken. ¹⁶Have you gone down to the sources of the sea \q or walked through the hidden depths of the ocean? ¹⁷Have the gates of death been opened to you? \q Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness? ¹⁸Have you grasped how wide the earth is? \q Tell me, if you know all this. ¹⁹Where is the road to the place where light lives? \q And darkness, where is its home, ²⁰so that you could lead it to its territory \q and know the paths to its home? ²¹Surely you know, since you were already born then, \q and you have lived so many days! ²²Have you gone into the storerooms of the snow \q or seen the storerooms of the hail, ²³which I keep in reserve for times of trouble, \q for days of battle and war? ²⁴By what way is the light parceled out, \q or the east wind spread across the earth?^{d 25}Who carves out a channel for the torrents of rain \q and a path for the thunderstorm, ²⁶to bring rain on land where no one lives, \q on a wilderness without a human in it, ²⁷to soak the barren, desolate ground \q and make the tender grass spring up? ²⁸Does the rain have a father? \q Who has fathered the drops of dew? ²⁹From whose womb does the ice come? \q And who gives birth to the frost of the sky? ³⁰The waters harden like stone, \q and the surface of the deep freezes solid. ³¹Can you tie together the cluster of the Pleiades \q or untie the belt of Orion?^{e 32}Can you bring out the constellations at their proper times \q or guide the Bear with its cubs?^{fg 33}Do you know the laws that govern the heavens? \q Can you establish their rule over the earth? ³⁴Can you shout an order to the clouds \q and have a flood of water cover you? ³⁵Can you send the lightning bolts on their way, \q and will they say to you, ‘Here we are’? ³⁶Who has put wisdom in the inner self \q or given understanding to the mind?^{hi 37}Who has the wisdom to count the clouds? \q Who can tip over the water jars of the sky ³⁸when the dust has hardened into a solid mass \q and the clods cling together?^{j 39}Do you hunt down prey for the lioness \q or satisfy the hunger of her young lions ⁴⁰when they crouch in their dens \q or lie in wait in the thicket? ⁴¹Who supplies the raven with its food \q when its young ones cry out to God \q and wander about with nothing to eat?