1 And the LORD answered Job from the storm and said:
2 "Who is this who makes counsel dark with words that lack knowledge?
3 Gird your loins like a man, now; I will ask you, and you will teach me.
4 Where were you when I founded the earth? Speak, if you have insight.
5 Who set its dimensions, seeing you know? Who stretched a measuring line across it?
6 Into what were its footings sunk, or who set down its cornerstone,
7 while the morning stars were singing together and all the sons of God were shouting for joy?
8 Who closed in the sea behind doors when it gushed forth, issuing from the womb,
9 when I made clouds its clothing and dense darkness its swaddling cloth,
10 when I broke off my boundary for it and fixed bolts and doors,
11 and said, 'You may come this far and no further, and here your proud waves are to halt'?
12 Since your days began, have you given orders to the morning, or taught the dawn its place,
13 so that it might seize the skirts of the earth and shake the wicked out of it?
14 It is transformed like clay beneath a seal, and things stand out like a garment.
15 The wicked are denied their light, and the raised arm is broken.
16 Have you gone down to the sources of the sea, or walked about in the recesses of the deep?
17 Have the gates of death been shown to you? Have you seen the gates of deep darkness?
18 Have you grasped the expanse of the earth? Tell me, if you know it all.
19 Which is the road to where light lives? And darkness, where is its home,
20 that you could lead it to its domain and know the paths to its dwelling?
21 You know it, for you were born back then, and your days are very many!
22 Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or looked on the storehouses of the hail,
23 which I hold in reserve for a time of distress, for a day of battle and war?
24 Which is the road to where the light is parceled out, where the east wind is spread over the earth?
25 Who has carved a channel for the downpour and a path for the thunder's flash,
26 to send rain on land where no one lives, on a desert with no man in it,
27 to soak the barren wasteland and make the shoots of grass spring up?
28 Has the rain a father? Who fathered the drops of the dew?
29 Out of whose womb came the ice? Who gave birth to the hoarfrost of the heavens,
30 when the waters hide themselves as under stone and the surface of the deep is locked fast?
31 Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades or loosen the ropes of Orion?
32 Can you bring out the Mazzaroth at their appointed time, or lead the Bear along with her cubs?
33 Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you fix their dominion on the earth?
34 Can you raise your voice to the clouds and make an abundance of water cover you?
35 Can you send lightning bolts on their way, so that they report to you, 'Here we are'?
36 Who has placed wisdom in the inward parts, or given understanding to the mind?
37 Who has the wisdom to number the clouds? Who can tilt the water jars of the heavens,
38 when the dust is fused into a mass and the clods cling together?
39 Do you hunt the prey for the lioness, or fill the appetite of the young lions,
40 when they lie low in their dens or wait in ambush in the thicket?
41 Who gets the raven its provision, when its young cry out to God and stray about without food?