¹Then Yahweh answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said:

²Who is this who darkens counsel with words without knowledge?

³Gird up your loins now like a man; I will ask you, and make it known to me.

⁴Where were you when I founded the land? Tell, if you know understanding.

⁵Who set its measurements, surely you know? Or who stretched out the measuring-line over it?

⁶On what were its bases sunk? Or who laid the stone of its corner,

⁷when the stars of morning gave a ringing cry together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

⁸Or who fenced in the sea with doors, when it burst forth, coming out from the womb?

⁹when I made the cloud its garment, and the thick dark cloud its swaddling-band,

¹⁰and I broke my boundary over it, and I set a bar and doors,

¹¹And I said, "Up to here you may come, and you may not add more; and here the pride of your waves shall be set."

¹²Have you commanded the morning in your days? Have you made the dawn know its place,

¹³to take hold of the edges of the land, and shake the wicked out of it?

¹⁴It is turned like clay under a seal, and they stand out like a garment.

¹⁵And their light is withheld from the wicked, and the arm that was held high is broken.

¹⁶Have you come to the springs of the sea, and in the depth of the deep have you walked about?

¹⁷Have the gates of death been uncovered to you? Have you seen the gates of deep shadow?

¹⁸Have you taken careful note of the broad spaces of the land? Tell it, if you know all of it.

¹⁹Where is the way to where light dwells, and darkness, where is its place,

²⁰that you could take it to its boundary, and that you discern the paths to its house?

²¹You know, for then you were born, and the number of your days is many!

²²Have you come to the storehouses of snow, and have you seen the storehouses of hail,

²³that I have kept back for a time of trouble, for a day of battle and warfare?

²⁴Where is the way the light is divided, so that it scatters the east wind over the land?

²⁵Who split a channel for the flood, and a path for the lightning bolt of the thunder-voices,

²⁶to send rain on a land with no one, a wilderness with no human in it,

²⁷to satisfy devastation and desolation, and make the going-forth of the grass sprout.

²⁸Is there a father for the rain? Or who has fathered the drops of dew?

²⁹From whose womb did the ice come out? And the hoarfrost of the skies, who gave birth to it?

³⁰Like stone the waters hide themselves, and the face of the deep holds fast together.

³¹Can you bind the bonds of the Pleiades, or loosen the cords of Orion?

³²Can you bring out the constellations in their time? And the Bear with her sons, can you guide them?

³³Do you know the statutes of the skies? Or will you set their rule over the land?

³⁴Will you lift your voice high to the cloud, that an abundance of water may cover you?

³⁵Can you send out lightning bolts, so that they go, and say to you, "Here we are"?

³⁶Who put wisdom in the inward parts? Or who gave understanding to the mind?

³⁷Who can count the clouds by wisdom, and who can lay down the waterskins of the skies?

³⁸when the dust is poured into a cast mass, and the clods cling together?

³⁹Will you hunt prey for the lion, and will you fill the life of the young lions,

⁴⁰when they crouch in the dens, and dwell in the thicket, lying in wait?

⁴¹Who prepares for the raven its game, when its young ones cry out for help to God, and wander about without food?